Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Merthyr Tydfil Water Charges) Bill.

Read a Second time, and committed.

Methodist Church Union Bills.

Mr. Lunn, Mr. Somerville, Mr. Withers, and Mr. Robert Young nominated Members of the Select Committee on the Methodist Church Union Bills.—[Sir George Hennessy.]

Oral Answers to Questions — AFGHANISTAN.

BRITISH AIRCRAFT.

Viscount SANDON: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any reply is being made to the statement of the Afghan Ambassador at Constantinople criticising the British flights over Afghanistan?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Austen Chamberlain): There is no truth in the statement attributed to the Afghan Ambassador in Turkey that British aircraft, other than those engaged in the evacuation of foreigners from Kabul, are daily flying over Afghanistan. I may add that these aircraft—the aircraft which are evacuating persons—are flying with the full consent of the de facto authorities in Kabul.

Mr. THURTLE: Is there any truth in the statement that for many months past British aeroplanes have been flying over Afghan territory?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir, there is no truth in that statement.

VISCOUNT SANDON: Did I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he was taking any action in regard to the speech of the Afghan Ambassador in Constantinople?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. I have not thought it necessary to take any action.

BRITISH POLICY.

11 Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether each successive step in the execution of British policy in Afghanistan is being determined by the Imperial Government in London or by the Government of India, or by His Majesty's Minister at Kabul; and whether His Majesty's Minister at Kabul has ever served in any capacity under the British Foreign Office?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The responsibility for the execution of British policy in Afghanistan rests with His Majesty's Government in this country, but in determining this policy they naturally give great weight to the advice of the Government of India and His Majesty's Minister at Kabul. His Majesty's Minister had not served under the Foreign Office until he took up his present appointment in 1922, but in that post he receives his instructions from me as Foreign Minister.

Mr. MALONE: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, when King Amanullah of Afghanistan formally announced his abdication to His Majesty's Government, he stated that he was abdicating in favour of his elder brother, ex-King Inayatullah; whether when the latter withdrew from Afghanistan King Amanullah rescinded his abdication; and whether he will define the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards King Amanullah and Habibullah Khan, otherwise Bachai-Sagao, respectively?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. When the Afghan Minister, Shuja-ud-Dowleh Khan, informed me on the 14th of January of King Amanullah's abdication, he added that His Majesty had nominated Sardar Inayatullah Khan to take his place. On the 28th January, some days after King Inayatullah's departure from Kabul, I received a further communication from Shuja-ud-
Dowleh Khan stating that King Amanullah had cancelled his abdication. As I have already informed the House in my reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) on the 30th January, His Majesty's Government do not support or recognise any party or Government in Afghanistan at the present time; and as I stated in my reply to the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) on the 6th of February, His Majesty's Minister at Kabul and His Majesty's Consul at Kandahar are in unofficial touch with the administrations of Habibulla Khan and King Amanullah respectively in regard to local matters.

FOREIGN DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES.

Mr. WELLOCK: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, besides His Majesty's Legation, the legation of any other Power has not been withdrawn from Kabul; whether King Amanullah has invited the foreign diplomatic representatives accredited to his court to join him at Kandahar; whether any members of the diplomatic body at Kabul have accepted this invitation; and what is the attitude of His Majesty's Government in the matter?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No foreign legation has been withdrawn from Kabul. I understand that King Amanullah has expressed his willingness to receive the foreign diplomatic representatives at Kandahar, but so far as I am aware no members of the diplomatic body at Kabul have accepted this invitation. His Majesty's Government do not propose to move their mission to Kandahar.

BRITISH PASSPORTS.

Mr. DAY: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the number of British passports at present in existence issued either by the British Foreign Office in England or by consular representatives abroad?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: So far as it is possible to say, the total number of valid British passports now in existence issued in the United Kingdom and at British Consulates abroad would be approximately 2,606,000.

Mr. DAY: How many of these were issued abroad? Can the right hon. Gentleman give the figures?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not quite certain, I probably could, with notice, but I could not give them without notice.

Mr. DAY: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any cases have been brought to his notice during the past 12 months of unlawful traffic in British passports issued outside of Great Britain; and, if so, can he give particulars?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member has, no doubt, in mind, the reports which have recently appeared in the Press as to the traffic in passports in Cyprus. A telegram on this subject has been received from the officer administering the Government of Cyprus which indicates that irregularities are not so widespread as has been suggested. Three clerks have been brought to trial on the charge of conspiracy to obtain false certificates of British nationality. The matter is still under investigation in Cyprus.

Mr. DAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that none of these clerks who have been brought to trial is of British nationality?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I think they are Cypriotes, and therefore British subjects. I cannot speak confidently without notice.

TANGIER.

Viscount SANDON: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any representations from the British Consul-General as to the complaints and recommendations made by the British Chamber of Commerce at Tangier, and endorsed by the international chamber there, as to local administration abuses; and what attitude he is adopting in connection therewith?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I have received from His Majesty's Consul-General at Tangier the text of an open letter addressed to him by the British Chamber of Commerce, the main purport of which is that the international zone is saddled with a number of superfluous
officials appointed for the satisfaction of national ambitions. While I cannot wholly accept the chamber's contentions, I am not prepared to deny that the number of posts may be somewhat in excess of what is strictly necessary. I do not, however, think that this state of affairs, which is a defect common to most composite administrations, could have been avoided in the circumstances. In so far as the complaint may he directed to the additional posts created by the Protocol of last July revising the Convention of 1923, the charge imposed upon the zone will, I hope, be more than offset by the financial benefits accruing from the participation of Italy in the international regime. His Majesty's Government have at all times done their best to keep the administrative expenses as low as possible. They will continue to do so, but my Noble Friend will realise that it does not rest with them alone.

Viscount SANDON: Are the Powers taking any action, or considering the complaints made by these bodies?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think the Powers can be expected to alter an arrangement come to as recently as last July.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

HANKOW (BRITISH INTERESTS).

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the pledge which the Hupeh Government gave that no further change would be made in the administration of the former concessions in Hankow, and of the fact that the action of the Hankow authorities in regard to the ex-German and ex-Russian concessions constitutes a breach of the undertaking, he will state what action he is taking to safeguard British interests in those areas?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware of any such pledge given by the Hupeh Government regarding the ex-German and ex-Russian concessions at Hankow. The question of the cancellation of the constitutions of these districts is being taken up with the National Government by His Majesty's Minister, who is stating the objections to the
retrograde step taken by the Wuhan authorities and urging reconsideration thereof, with the idea of preserving some form of foreign representation in the administration.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it not the case that the changes which have taken place are very much against British interests in Hankow?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I think the Minister would not be making representations if he thought that the changes were favourable to British or foreign interests. I hope a friendly settlement will be reached in due course.

TARIFF AUTONOMY TREATY.

Sir JOHN POWER: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he expects that the new commercial treaty with China will be ratified?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The Tariff Autonomy Treaty signed on the 20th of December by Dr. C. T. Wang and Sir M. Lampson was ratified by the National Government of China on the 9th of January and by the Counsellors of State on behalf of The King on 1st February. The ratifications have not yet been exchanged, but the treaty was brought into force by a protocol signed at Nanking on the 6th of February.

RUSSIA (DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS).

Mr. TAYLOR: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information regarding the negotiations now proceeding between the Russian Government and the Government of the United States of America for a settlement of debt and the resumption of diplomatic relations; and whether he has any statement to make on the subject of Anglo-Russian relations?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.

Mr. TAYLOR: Did the right hon. Gentleman see the London Press of last Friday?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I can only see some papers. I do not know to what paper the hon. Member alludes.

Mr. TAYLOR: Is it not a fact that references appeared in the London Press last Friday based upon statements made in the "Berline Tageblatt"?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know what appeared.

Mr. TAYLOR: With regard to the second part of the question, has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the figures which were given in the House yesterday by the President of the Board of Trade showing the very serious diminution in British exports to Russia; and does he not think that a statement of the terms and conditions on which the British Government would be willing to enter into negotiations would help British trade?

Mr. SPEAKER: That question does not arise.

Mr. TAYLOR: But, Mr. Speaker, I am asking the right hon. Gentleman—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is asking a question which does not arise from the answer which has been given.

NAVAL ARMAMENTS AND MARITIME LAW.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government now proposes to call a new conference on naval armaments; and whether the invitation will include any suggestion for an international conference on maritime law?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government have no intention of issuing invitations to a conference on these subjects. As I informed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) on the 6th instant, all questions concerning our relations with America and the naval conditions of the two countries are under consideration by His Majesty's Government. I added that I was unable to make any statement until that inquiry was concluded. Our examination of these questions is being diligently prosecuted. As soon as it is concluded, the first step will be to communicate its results to the Governments of the Dominions and to receive and consider their views.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do I understand from that answer that the communications now passing with the Dominion Governments are not as to the possibility of a new conference on armaments; and does that mean that the invitation of last September—the practical invitation by the American Secretary of State—is not going to be answered?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Certain communications which have passed and are passing between His Majesty's Government and the Dominions are not in relation to the summoning by this Government of a new conference. The Note of the United States Government did not contain an invitation to His Majesty's Government to summon or to attend a new conference.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Did not the Note make a valuable suggestion for further agreement? Surely that can only be reached by a conference?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: That Note objected to proposals which had been made by His Majesty's Government, on the ground that the United States Government had already expressed its objection to them. The same Note ended by suggesting that the United States Government would be prepared to proceed with negotiations on a basis to which His Majesty's Government had previously expressed their objection.

Mr. THURTLE: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to the statement of the British Ambassador at Washington to the effect that, after the General Election, the British Government would initiate fresh negotiations on the naval armaments question and if this statement was made on the instructions of His Majesty's Government?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second part in the negative.

Mr. THURTLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the statement of the Ambassador and the subsequent contradiction here caused misunderstanding to arise in America; and will the Foreign Office be at pains to instruct our Ambassador as to the policy which the Foreign Office intends to pursue in this matter?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: If the hon. Members looks carefully at the statement issued here and the statement made by the Ambassador, he will see that there is no contradiction between them. The statement issued here was a correction of mistaken inferences drawn from the Ambassador's correct statement, in Washington.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Did not the right hon. Gentleman's answer to me a moment ago give an account of the matter totally different from that given by the Ambassador?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: There are further questions on this subject on the Paper, including, I think, one by the hon. and gallant Member, and perhaps he will await my replies.

Commander WILLIAMS: Is there any reason to assume that our Foreign Office is always in the wrong?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the negotiations as to a renewed arbitration treaty with the United States of America included and embraced the settlement between the two Powers of what was to be mutually agreed to as understood by the freedom of the seas?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: As I have already informed the House, the proposals made by the United States Government for an Anglo-American arbitration treaty to replace the Root-Bryce Treaty of 1908 are receiving the attentive consideration of His Majesty's Government in Great Britain in consultation with His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions. As these consultations have not yet been concluded, I am not in a position to make any further statement on the subject.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are these consultations the same consultations and considerations that have been given to the question of the freedom of the seas?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: All questions that arise out of the matters now open between us and the United States Government are being taken into consideration.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is this treated as the same question?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I will not say that it is the same question, but it is one of the questions which His Majesty's Government are considering.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I am sorry to he pertinacious, but as the one trouble between us and America which might involve the use of this Arbitration Treaty arises through different interpretations of the rights of neutrals at sea, would it not be wise to avoid the expense and risks of arbitration by seeing that this question is settled in the treaty itself?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot make a statement as to what will be the result of a review of these matters which has not yet been concluded. All that I can say—and I think the right hon. and gallant Member ought to be content with that—is that His Majesty's Government are examining all these questions with a view to coming to such conclusion.

Mr. DALTON: Is it expected that that examination will be concluded in the next few months?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot say how long it will take. Some time further will be required, by His Majesty's Government here, and full time must be given to the Dominion Governments to express their views.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will explain the circumstances which led to the statement being made by His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at Washington in connection with the increase in the American fleet and the possibility of renewed agreements on the fleet-strength of the United States of America and England?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington has reported that on being approached by representatives of the Press for his views on cables emanating from this country suggesting the possibility of an imminent renewal of negotiations for the limitation of naval armaments, he issued a statement representing his personal opinion as to the probable course of events. It will not have escaped the attention of the right hon. Gentleman that in no part of the Ambassador's
statement did he indicate that immediate developments were likely, although erroneous deductions in this sense seem to have been drawn from his remarks by certain sections of the Press.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are we to understand that answers given in this House by the Secretary of State, with such explanations of them as may be necessary, are not communicated to His Majesty's Ambassadors abroad who are concerned, and in particular was the answer of 6th February not communicated to our Ambassador in Washington in time to check it?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: He would receive the answer of 6th February in due course, though exactly what "due course" may be I could not say without notice, but we do in the ordinary routine of our duties take all the measures we can to keep our Missions abroad fully informed, and I repeat that in this case the contradiction, if contradiction there be, between the communiqué which I issued on Saturday and what the Ambassador said, is not in that communiqué and is not in what the Ambassador said, but in incorrect inferences drawn from it.

Mr. HANNON: In point of fact, is there any substantial difference between the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman and the statement made in Washington by our Ambassador?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I have already said that in my opinion there was not.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those erroneous deductions were very warmly received in Government circles in Japan and America?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

TUBERCULOSIS (DISABILITY PENSIONS).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 16.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many claims have been received since the revision of the rules and principles relating to the assessment of attributability of tuberculosis; in how many cases a disability pension has been awarded; how
many claims have been reconsidered in the light of fresh medical evidence submitted since the revision of the rules; and in how many cases a disability pension has been awarded?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): Since the new rules came into operation on the 1st of October last, 70 cases of invaliding for tuberculosis have been dealt with. In 46 of these cases disability pensions have been granted and 10 cases are still under consideration. Ten cases dealt with before the 1st of October have been reconsidered on appeal, but in none of these was any fresh medical evidence adduced and the original awards were therefore maintained.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is it true that a very much higher percentage of claims is now being submitted under the new Rules?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I think that is clear from my statement.

CRUISER CONSTRUCTION (COST).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 17.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the present-day cost, approximately, of a British 10,000-ton cruiser of the "A" type and an 8,000-ton cruiser of the "B" type?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The mean cost of the 10,000-ton cruisers of the "A" class at present under construction or on order is estimated approximately at £2,180,000, and of the "B" type (8,400 tons) £1,800,000.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does that include armament?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is this an estimate for dockyard construction or for construction by private firms?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I am not quite certain. I would rather like to have notice of that question.

ROYAL DOCKYARD, PORTSMOUTH (ACCOUNTING).

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 20.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any changes are contemplated in the organisation and duties of the wages and expense accounts sections of His Majesty's Dockyard, Portsmouth; whether he is aware
that the clerks in the wages section are pensioners from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines; whether it is the intention to abolish these posts and substitute women clerks; and, if so, whether he will consider whether the same number of clerkships can be given to pensioners in other departments?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: Steps are being taken to introduce a revised system of accounting in His Majesty's Dockyard. Portsmouth, including a new method of making up wages, which supersedes a more eleborate system on which pensioner clerks have been to a large extent employed. The new method is suited to a different class of labour and partly to the use of machines, and it is, therefore, proposed to employ women clerks upon it. This reorganisation will render redundant a number of the pensioner clerks now employed in the cashier's office, but it is the intention to employ them on other work until they can be reabsorbed in that office. In departments of the yard other than those concerned with cash and secretarial work, the staffs are composed of the departmental clerical class, and it is not considered practicable to introduce pensioner clerks into them.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether this applies to Portsmouth only, or whether it is intended to apply at other places as well?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: We are trying out the new system at Portsmouth, and if it is proved to be satisfactory, we shall no doubt extend it.

Mr. KELLY: Are we to understand that the positions to which the pensioner clerks are to be moved will not mean a lowering of their status?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I do not think there is any intention of lowering their status.

CLOTHING (PURCHASES AND LEAVE).

Sir B. FALLE: 21.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that naval ratings who are ordered to purchase articles of uniform by the clothing officer have their leave stopped until the article or articles have been purchased; and, in view of the fact that
issues of clothing are made by cash purchase, whether he will authorise the credit issue of such articles, recovery being made through the ship's ledger, so that young ratings shall not lose their liberty time?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I am not aware that naval ratings have their leave stopped in the circumstances mentioned by my hon. Friend, but if he has any particular case in mind and will supply me with the details I shall be glad to institute inquiries.

SUPPLEMENTARY OFFICERS (RETIRED PAY).

Sir B. FALLE: 22.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will consider granting the same scale of retired pay to lieutenant-commanders of the supplementary list as those granted to lieutenant-commanders who transferred from the Royal Naval Reserve to the active list in 1916, observing that the officers of the supplementary list are called upon to perform the same duties and that their daily rates of full pay are the same as other lieutenant-commanders, but that the messing allowance of supplementary officers of 2s. per day was abolished on the 1st April, 1919?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The rates of retired pay and other emoluments of supplementary officers, in relation to those of other classes of officers, were fully considered in 1919 when the present rates of pay and allowances were fixed, and I regret that I cannot hold out any hope of their being revised.

GERMAN NAVY.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 18.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is in possession of any details regarding the proposed new 10,000 ton German armoured vessels; and can he give their proposed armament, speed, and radius of action?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: No information beyond what has appeared in the Press is available in the Admiralty.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is not the Admiralty entitled to certain information under the Treaty of Versailles about the details of these ships?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: There is nothing in the description that appears in the Press which is inconsistent with the Treaty of Versailles.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Yes, but we do not rely on the Press, do we? Do the Admiralty rely on Press statements only, or have we any other means of ascertaining if the Treaty is being observed?

Commander BELLAIRS: Is not the hon. and gallant Member right in thinking that every detail of armament has got to be communicated?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I cannot answer that question offhand, but I am pretty certain that we are correct in supposing that the Treaty has not been in any way infringed.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

EXCHANGE ATTENDANCE.

Mr. BROAD: 24.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that men frequently find that, by going to seek for work directly they hear of a prospect, they cannot attend at the Employment Exchange to sign at the scheduled time allotted to them; that, on reporting out of their time, they are sent away, and not allowed to sign until a later hour in the day, and then in some cases are given a form to be completed by two householders who have to state that of their knowledge the applicant was unemployed on that day; and whether these formalities can be altered so as not to impede attempts to find work?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): Timing arrangements are introduced in the interests of the applicants themselves in order to prevent queues, and it is important that they should be observed as far as possible. If, however, an applicant attends later than his proper time for a good reason such as that mentioned by the hon. Member, no difficulty is put in the way of his signing the Unemployed Register. The form referred to in the question is issued only in cases where doubt arises as to whether the applicant has in fact had work during the day. If the hon. Mem-
ber has any individual cases in mind and cares to give particulars, I shall be glad to have inquiries made.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the outer circle of London these cases are frequent owing to the large number of men whose only hope of employment is to go into the heart of London?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: In those cases, the rule is that they should be allowed to sign later. If mistakes have been made, I shall be glad if hon. Members will let me have cases.

EXCHANGES (OVERTIME).

Mr. BROAD: 26.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the pressure of work and the amount of overtime being worked by the clerical and supervising staffs of the Employment Exchanges due to the application of the Act of 1927; whether these staffs receive any extra payment for the hours worked beyond the normal working day; whether he is prepared to engage additional employés from the unemployed clerks registering at the Exchanges; and whether he will bear in mind that the representative of his Department stated before a Civil Service court of arbitration that the clerical work at the Exchanges was of a routine and repetitive nature?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am aware that the work of the Employment Exchanges necessitates a certain amount of overtime. All time worked (a) by established clerical grades in excess of 44 hours a week, and (b) by unestablished clerical grades in excess of 46 hours a week is paid for at special rates. Where there is prolonged overtime of certain supervisory grades this is also paid for. Every effort is made to avoid the working of overtime by engaging additional staff wherever necessary, but it is not practicable to avoid all overtime by this means.

Mr. BROAD: Is the Minister aware that owing to the pressure on these staffs, they cannot give adequate time to the cases, and that a great deal of friction arises out of the system?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not aware of that fact. Wherever possible or necessary, I get in additional help, but the distribution of work over different
days of the week and as between different classes of officials makes it impossible to deal with the whole of it in that way.

Mr. R. YOUNG: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is 44 hours in one case and 46 hours in the other?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot do so without notice.

TEXTILE TRADES.

Mr. HANNON: 32.
asked the Minister of Labour the extent to which unemployment now obtains in the industries associated with the production of handkerchiefs, household linen goods, cotton piece goods, and in those manufactures in which jute and hemp form the whole or part of the finished product; and the volume of employment in similar industries in Switzerland and the corresponding rates of wages and hours of labour of workers employed in these industries in this country and Switzerland, respectively?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I regret that the information in my possession is insufficient to provide a satisfactory basis for the comparisons desired by my hon. Friend, but I will supply him with a statement giving such particulars as are available.

Mr. HANNON: Is it not a fact that in Switzerland there is practically no unemployment, and that that is a country which is protected, while in this country, with an open Free Trade market, there is substantial unemployment?

JUVENILE UNEMPLOYMENT CENTRE, BISHOP AUCKLAND.

Mrs. DALTON: 33.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of lads at present in training at the juvenile training centre in Bishop Auckland; and what proportion this number bears to the total number of unemployed lads of the same age in the area served by this centre?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The number of boys in attendance at the Bishop Auckland Juvenile Unemployment Centre during the week ended 16th February was 541. This number represents 83.6 per cent. of the boys registered for employment at the juvenile employment bureaux at Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor, Crook and Weardale.

Mr. BATEY: What are the maximum and minimum ages of the trainees?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Speaking from memory, the ages are from 14 to 18, but I should like to verify that.

Mrs. DALTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider providing larger and better equipped premises, which would give accommodation for all lads who are registered as unemployed, and also for many of those lads who are not registered and who are known to be unemployed?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: It is quite obvious that the premises are likely to be sufficient in size for the district when 84 per cent. are already attending. That is a high percentage in any case of this kind. With regard to the accomodation of the other lads, that means an extension of the whole question of age, and it is a larger question which would need full consideration.

TRANSFER OF WORKERS.

Mrs. DALTON: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour whether records are kept by his Department with regard to the transference of men from mining areas showing how long each man start in his first job and the details of his subsequent employment or unemployment, as the case may be?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No special records are kept for this purpose.

Mrs. DALTON: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that without this information it is impossible to estimate the permanent value of this transference scheme?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No; when we place people in what are continuing jobs, it is an almost impossible task to keep track of every person from one job to another, and, from the information at our disposal, the work is going on sufficiently fell and does not need it.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to see that the men who are transferred to jobs provided by the Minister of Health are adequately clothed and booted?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: In matters of clothing and boots, the Lord Mayor's Fund—

Mr. SPEAKER: That really does not arise out of the question.

Mr. MARDY JONES: Are steps taken when men are transferred from the mining areas to other districts to see that the wages paid are trade union rates?

Mr. SPEAKER: That again does not arise out of the question.

Mr. LANSBURY: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken action along the lines which he partially promised me, namely, to take samples from various towns as to what has become, or is becoming, of the men who are transferred? I put a simple question, and I was told that the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary would try and track them.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not aware of it, but I will look to see if I ever said anything of the kind.

Mr. LANSBURY: If the right hon. Gentleman did not, the Parliamentary Secretary did.

Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman has been asked for information on these lines time after time since the Transference Board came into operation, and that he has not been able to give it; and, as we cannot judge whether the scheme is a success or not without the information, is it not worth while compiling it?

Mr. WALLHEAD: Is it the practice of the right hon. Gentleman's Department to force men to take jobs that other men have refused because of the rotten conditions under which employment is given?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

Mr. R. YOUNG: 39.
asked the Minister of Labour whether any youths have been sent from Birkenhead or other industrial centres to Wrexham; if so, can he give the numbers sent from such places; whether the wages paid are sufficient for their maintenance; and whether any additional amount is being paid to them or their employers out of the Lord Mayor's Relief Fund?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No youths from Birkenhead have been sent to employment in a coal mine at Wrexham, but three youths have been sent from Accrington and one from Maryport. I cannot say precisely what wages are being received by them but I have no reason to
suppose that the wages are insufficient to cover the cost of maintenance. No grant has been paid to these youths or to the employer from the Lord Mayor's Fund.

Mr. PALING: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these people had previously been employed in or about a mine?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Not without notice being given to me.

TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 25.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that Leaflet No. U.1. 591, issued to persons claiming unemployment benefit, states that they are refused for not having the 30-stamps qualification; that it makes no mention of the transition period; and that persons are thus denied benefit; and if he will take steps to have this circular withdrawn and another take its place?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I agree that the wording of the letter is unsatisfactory, and it had been already decided to revise it. An amended print is in the press. The hon. Member may, however, rest assured that benefit is not being refused under the First Statutory Conditions to claimants who can satisfy the reduced transitional conditions.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a man has no knowledge that he can take advantage of the transition period and that no information to that effect is supplied to him? Does he not know that a man is often deprived of benefit through no fault of the Exchange officials, but because of the lack of information given to him?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I think that is not the case. This leaflet is issued only to those claimants who have failed to satisfy the transitional conditions and, in addition, have failed to satisfy the statutory conditions. It is issued to them in order that if for some reason such as sickness his is a case in which an exception can legitimately be made, he should be able to take advantage of the fact.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I have sent the right hon. Gentleman a case this week where that does not apply at all. Will he have full inquiries made?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will certainly look into the case.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 37.
asked the Minister of Labour if he has yet come to any decision as to the continuation or otherwise of what is known as the transition period in the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1927; if so, can he state the nature of such decision; and, if not, in view of the anxiety felt in many quarters, when he will be in a position to make a statement?

Mr. STEPHEN: 55.
asked the Minister of Labour whether any estimate has been made of the number of men and women, respectively, who will fail to qualify for benefit if the transition period under the Unemployment Insurance Act is not extended; and, if so, can he state in what areas investigations have been made in this connection?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I regret I cannot add anything to the replies which I gave to the hon. Members on this subject on 23rd January.

Mr. T. SHAW: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he thinks it will be possible to make a statement on this matter?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: When I have got together the information which will enable me to make any substantial and reliable statement to the House, I shall be very glad to do so.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the Minister not answer the part of my question as to whether he has taken any sample cases in connection with this matter?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I have been making inquiries.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Seeing that the end of this transition period is approaching, can the Minister not give us any idea of when he will be able to make a definite statement to the House?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot. As I have said, it will be made in ample time for the House to take the whole matter into consideration.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of the local authorities who will be affected, and the
unemployed persons, think that this six weeks is becoming less than ample time, and will he define just exactly what he means by "ample time"?

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say that the statement will be made before the General Election?

GLASGOW.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour the total number of persons in Glasgow now signing at the various Exchanges and receiving benefit, and the number signing who are not receiving any benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Statistics are not available regarding the number of persons on the live register who are actually in receipt of benefit. At 11th February, 1929, out of a total of 59,422 persons on the Registers of Employment Exchanges in the Glasgow area 41,528 had claims to benefit admitted or under consideration, leaving a balance of 17,894, including a considerable number of persons who are not insured, who had no such claims.

BENEFIT DISALLOWED.

Mr. TINKER: 40.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that miners from the Ashton-in-Makerfield and St. Helens district are being struck off unemployment benefit because they refuse to accept employment at Wrexham, which is some 40 miles away; and if he will see that they are not refused benefit on this account, especially as they are refused employment in the district where they live because they are over 39 years of age?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am informed that men registered at the Ashton-in-Makerfield Exchange have had claims for benefit disallowed owing to the refusal of what the statutory authorities regarded as suitable employment at Wrexham. I cannot find that any men registered at the St. Helens Exchange were disqualified on similar grounds in respect of the Wrexham vacancies. As regards the last part of the question, I am afraid that incorrect information was given to the hon. Member locally as the result of a misunderstanding of a telephone message. Men up to the age of 54 have recently been taken on for colliery work in the district.

Mr. TINKER: Has the right hon. Gentleman any power to deal with employers who fix an age limit so much below the pensionable age?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, Sir.

Mr. TINKER: If the Minister has no power to do that, can he not give an instruction to the court of referees that they should take such a circumstance into consideration when dealing with a case?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, Sir, I have no power to give instructions to courts of referees; but, if any considerations of this sort are brought to their notice, I think that as reasonable men, who have the responsibility of judging these cases, they would take them into account.

Mr. PALING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some of the cases in which it has been said that mines are wanting men and cannot get them they are refusing to set men to work if they are over 40 years of age, and that is the reason why they cannot get skilled labour?

Mr. BROAD: Though the right hon. Gentleman says he has no power to give instructions to the court of referees, is it not a fact that his insurance officer remains in the court of referees to advise and instruct them after the applicant has withdrawn?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The chief insurance officer, whose deputy the local insurance officers are, is part of the system of the statutory courts. I have no right to interfere with the decision of the chief insurance officer or with the court of referees.

Mr. PALING: rose—

Mr. SPEAKER: That seems to be a question of law.

Mr. BUCHANAN: On a point of Order. Is it not possible for you to have a course of instruction for Ministers, so that we may get proper answers to our questions?

Mr. TINKER: I want the right hon. Gentleman to meet me about the statement I have made, in order to clear up a point. Can I see him?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: indicated assent.

Mr. MALONE: 44.
asked the Minister of Labour what percentage of 78 day review cases considered by the courts of referees have been disallowed benefit during each of the past two quarters?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The proportion of 78 day review cases recommended for disallowance by courts of referees was 4.5 per cent. in the three months ended 8th October, 1928, and per cent. in the three months ended 14th January, 1929.

TRAINING (BENEFIT).

Major COHEN: 41.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, if a married man is selected for training at one of the Ministry's training centres, his wife receives unemployment benefit during his training?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Married men at the Ministry's training centres are, as a rule, in receipt of unemployment benefit (including the allowance in respect of a wife or other dependants) if they are being trained for employment in this country, but not if they are being trained for employment overseas.

Major COHEN: 42.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, if an unemployed man and wife are both given training at the only centre in the country where married families can be trained unemployment benefit is withheld; and, if this is so, will he consider giving the organisation which undertakes to support the family whilst training that benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I understand that the training at the centre referred to is for employment overseas. Accordingly, as I explained in reply to the hon. and gallant Member's previous question, unemployment benefit is not paid to those undergoing this training.

Major COHEN: Can the Minister explain why unemployment benefit should not be paid?

Sir A. STEEL-MA1TLAND: The reason is this. When we were training persons for employment in this country, it could be reasonably assumed that a man would later take up insurable work, but we are also training persons for employment overseas, where, normally speaking, they are likely to go out of the field of British insurable work. On the other hand, the situation is being met by giving the
married men who are training for overseas an additional allowance which will take the place of benefit.

Mr. BECKETT: Could not the right hon. Gentleman see his way to treat this as a debt of honour?

LOCAL AUTHORITIES SCHEMES.

Mr. KELLY: 50.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will state the authorities which have submitted schemes, and received approval of such schemes under the circular of 9th November, 1928, for dealing with work for the unemployed?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: A list is being prepared and will be sent to the hon. Member when complete.

ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY (FOREIGN ARTISTES).

Mr. BECKETT: 51.
asked the Minister of Labour why he issued permits to land in England to a music-hall troupe known as the Coney Island Freaks; and whether, considering the widespread unemployment amongst British music-hall artistes, he will consider rescinding the permits?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: After consultation with the Variety Artistes' Federation permits were issued in this case for a number of aliens, described as vaudeville artistes, on condition that they were engaged with not less than 50 per cent. of British "acts" I have since learned that there has been objection to some features of the performance and I understand that the performers concerned will be repatriated forthwith.

Mr. BECKETT: Was any procedure adopted by the Labour Ministry to find out what kind of turn it was?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am occasionally the judge of artistic merits, but it is the Home Secretary who is the censor of morals.

Sir FRANK MEYER: Will the right hon. Gentleman ascertain from the party opposite since when has it been their policy to restrict the importation of alien freaks?

Mr. BECKETT: Is the Minister of Labour not aware that, like his right hon. Friend, he is in a minority on art as his colleague is on morals?

Mr. DAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether a consultation took place with the Variety Artistes' Federation before permits were issued to these foreign artistes?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As regards employment, I generally consult with the different bodies representing British artistic performers in this country.

HOUSEHOLD REMOVAL SCHEME.

Mr. R. MORRISON: 52.
asked the Minister of Labour whether money advanced for removal expenses of an unemployed man, his wife, children and furniture from a mining area to London is repayable, and under what conditions?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: if the hon. Member has in mind the household removal scheme affecting workpeople transferring from certain depressed mining areas, grants made under this scheme are not normally repayable. Only if the applicant fails to remove his household and returns to his home area upon the conclusion of the employment to which he came, and cannot show good reason for not removing his household, does any question of repayment arise. I should add that the railway fare of the workman himself is an advance on loan, except that part of it may be on certain conditions paid out of the Unemployment Fund if he is an insured person.

Mr. MORRISON: If I send the right hon. Gentleman particulars of a case in which a man's wages are being stopped at the rate of 4s. a week by arrangement with the Employment Exchange, in order to repay the fares of himself and his wife, with his furniture, to London, will the right hon. Gentleman look into it?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Yes, Sir.

INSURANCE FUND (DEBT).

Mr. STEPHEN: 53.
asked the Minister of Labour to the latest available date the deficiency in the Unemployment Insurance Fund; whether the deficiency is increasing weekly; and whether during any recent weeks there has been no deficiency in the fund?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The present debt of the Unemployment Fund to the Treasury is £34,030,000. During
recent months the debt has been increasing weekly, and there has not been any week recently in which the debt has not been added to.

STATISTICS.

Mr. STEPHEN: 54.
asked the Minister of Labour how many additional workers are in employment this year to the latest available date as compared with last year and 1924; and of those how many are in productive and distributive industry respectively?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: It is estimated that at 21st January, 1929, there were approximately 105,700 fewer insured persons aged 16 to 64 in employment than at 23rd January, 1928, but 613,000 more than at 28th January, 1924. I am not sure that it would be possible to analyse the figures with sufficient accuracy under the headings of productive and distributive industry.

Mr. STEPHEN: In view of the importance of these figures, cannot the Minister give us some estimate from his Department as to how many are in productive and how many are in distributive industry?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The difficulty of defining what is productive and what is distributive lies in deciding

PERSONS on the REGISTER of certain Employment Exchanges in DERBYSHIRE at 28th January, 1929.


Exchange.
Wholly Unemployed.
Temporarily Stopped.
Total.


Eckington
…
…
…
…
…
542
159
701


Clay Cross
…
…
…
…
…
400
192
592


Bolsover
…
…
…
…
…
256
424
680


Chesterfield
…
…
…
…
…
3,290
463
3,753


Staveley
…
…
…
…
…
343
46
389


Dronfield
…
…
…
…
…
228
49
277


There is no Local Office of the Ministry of Labour at Clown, Whitwell, or Cresswell, and separate figures in respect of those places are therefore not available.

IRON AND STEEL TRADES (EMPLOYMENT).

Commander BELLAIRS: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour the numbers of men actually employed in the iron and steel trades of Great Britain and France in

where one is to classify such services as those of gas, water, drainage and municipal services.

Mr. STEPHEN: In view of the fact that the Minister of Health has just piloted a Bill through this House to give relief to productive industries as against all other industries, surely the Minister will see the importance of giving us some estimate with regard to these two branches?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The question of municipal industries does not enter into that Bill.

Mr. STEPHEN: Surely the Minister of Labour can consult the Minister of Health and give us some figure?

DERBYSHIRE.

Mr. LEE: 56.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed signing the register at the following Employment Exchanges in Derbyshire on 28th January last, Eckington, Clay Cross, Clown, Bolsover, Chesterfield, Staveley, Whitwell, Dronfield, and Cresswell?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As the reply includes a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL, REPORT.

Following is the statement:

1913 and 1928; and how much of the French increase is due to the increase of territory?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I regret I am unable to give figures on a, comparable basis for these two years, either for Great Britain or for France.

Commander BELLAIRS: Will the right hon. Gentleman give me the later year?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: For 1928 in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the total number of workpeople from 16 to 64 inclusive insured, against an-employment was about 200,700 in the iron and steel industry. In France, the most recent figures in my possession refer to 1927, and, according to the Comité des Forges, the total number of workers, including salaried employés, in the iron and steel works was 166,000, of whom 32,500 were in Alsace and Lorraine.

RUMANIA (INDUSTRIAL (CONDITIONS).

Mr. WELLOCK: 38.
asked the Minister of Labour what information is available regarding the wages and standard of life of the industrial workers of Rumania?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The Rumanian Government have published two volumes of statistics dealing respectively with the wages of a large number of categories of workers in each of the principal towns in Rumania and with the prices of commodities in different districts in 1927. These statistics are too extensive to be condensed within the limits of a reply to a Parliamentary question, but I shall be glad to supply the hon. Member with extracts if he will indicate a limited number of towns for which he requires particulars.

CABINET.

Commander BELLAIRS: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in order to bring about a reduction both in the size and cost of the Cabinet, he will consider a combination of more than one portfolio by individual Ministers?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I do not think that my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion is practicable.

Commander BELLAIRS: Has the Prime Minister taken into consideration Mussolini's successful combination of no less than eight portfolios in his Ministry?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: If the Prime Minister cannot accept the
suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs), will he change the whole of the portfolios?

Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: May I ask the Prime Minister whether there is at present a Cabinet vacancy at the Exchequer?

Mr. STEPHEN: May I ask the Prime Minister whether the Ministries which he said formerly were to be abolished are going to be abolished—the Ministry of Mines Department and the others?

Mr. THURTLE: In connection with other suggestions, will the Prime Minister also consider the suggestion to take a white flag as the symbol for the Cabinet?

Mr. STEPHEN: May I not have an answer to my question as to the Mines Department and the other Ministries which the Prime Minister indicated were to be abolished?

Mr. SPEAKER: The Secretary for Mines is not in the Cabinet.

SAVINGS BANKS BILL.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with the Savings Banks Bill during the present Parliament?

The PRIME MINISTER: As the hon. Member is aware this Bill received a Second Reading yesterday.

COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY (SOUTH AFRICA).

Mr. AMMON: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a statement made by the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of the Union of South Africa that the South African Government will not participate in a scheme which would confer on the existing wireless company, or any possible future combined wireless and cable company, a sole monopoly of foreign wireless communications; and whether, in view of this statement, any change is contemplated in the policy of handing over imperial telegraphic communications to a privately-owned communications company?

The PRIME MINISTER: As regards the first part of this question, I have seen a report in the Press in which a statement is attributed to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of the Union of South Africa to the effect that he did not think that any Government of the Union of South Africa would confer on the existing South African Wireless Company or any possible future combined wireless and cable company a sole monopoly of all foreign wireless communications. The hon. Member will also doubtless have seen a report in the Press of a further statement made by the Minister to Reuter's correspondent. As regards the second part of the question, it does not appear to me that acceptance by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of the recommendations of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference, 1928, would conflict in any way with a policy such as is described in the Press reports.

Mr. AMMON: Why were we not informed of this arrangement when the Bill was going through?

The PRIME MINISTER: If the hon. Member has any further questions to put, I should be glad if he would put them down on the Order Paper. I have answered the hon. Member's question. I cannot see that even that report of the speech, if we were to consider such things, in any way affects what the Government have done. If there is any matter to be communicated to us on this question, it should be communicated to us by the Government of South Africa.

Mr. AMMON: Would it not make a difference if we were told that the Dominion Governments were parties to this scheme, and afterwards one of them announced that it is not going to be a party to it? Does that not show that the House was misled?

The PRIME MINISTER: We must await a statement of that kind from the Government concerned, and we cannot take what we see in the Press.

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (RATING).

Mr. R. MORRISON: 48.
asked the Prime Minister, in view of the increased burden of rates thrown upon the voluntary hospitals by the Rating and Valua-
tion Act, 1925, whether the Government will introduce a Bill during the present Session to remedy this, upon an assurance by all parties in the House that such a Measure would be regarded as non-controversial?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): I have been asked to reply. The Rating and Valuation Act made no alteration in the basis of the valuation of hospitals. It is open to the assessment authorities now, as heretofore, to adopt a basis which will take full account of the special circumstances of voluntary hospitals dependent upon contributions from the public and of the responsibilities, conditions and restrictions which affect their rateable value. Full rights of objection and appeal are available to any governing body which is not satisfied that due regard has been paid to these factors and is aggrieved by the assessment proposed. As I indicated in the answer recently given to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle, North (Sir N. Grattan-Doyle), the complete or partial exemption of hospitals from rating by statutory enactment could not be considered apart from the claims of other charitable and public institutions, and the introduction of legislation to that end could not be undertaken in the life of the present Parliament. I understand, however, that the British Hospitals Association are at my right hon. Friend's suggestion proposing to submit to the Central Valuation Committee proposals for promoting greater uniformity in the assessment of voluntary hospitals and the adoption of a generally acceptable basis of valuation.

Mr. MORRISON: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that his very plausible reply does not alter the fact that, under the Rating and Valuation Bill of 1925, the hospitals of this country have had increased burdens placed upon them amounting to many thousands of pounds, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that they find very great difficulty in keeping the hospitals going? Under these circumstances, is the Government not prepared to do something to remedy that state of things?

Sir K. WOOD: As I stated just now, there has been no alteration made in the basis of the valuation of hospitals by
that Act. I think the best course at the present time is for the hospitals themselves to adopt the suggestions which I have indicated in the last part of my answer, which were arrived at following an interview between the Minister of Health and the representatives of British hospitals.

Mr. MORRISON: Would it not be a more satisfactory method of proceeding for the Government to give facilities to the Bill which is going to be introduced this afternoon by the leader of yesterday's victory?

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: Is the Parliamentary Secretary prepared to support the proposals of the British Hospitals Associations when they come before the Central Valuation Committee?

Sir K. WOOD: We will do everything we can to assist them, but we have no statutory authority to intervene in regard to the policy of the Central Valuation Committee which has made certain suggestions. I have no doubt that those suggestions will promote a great deal of uniformity and may lead to good results.

Mr. JAMES HUDSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the ameliorative work of the hospitals is as worthy of consideration as the work of the brewers?

NATIONAL FLYING SERVICES, LIMITED.

Captain GARRO-JONES: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the statements in the White Paper (Cmd. 3204) to the effect that the Government proposes to subsidise the National Flying Services, Limited, and that this company has announced its intention to offer its shares for public subscription; and whether, in view of the fact that this House has not given its sanction to the proposed subsidy, he will give an early opportunity for the discussion of the matter?

The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, the Air Estimates will afford the hon. and gallant Member an appropriate occasion for raising this matter.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Is the Prime Minister aware that this proposal has aroused great opposition not only from
the point of view of civil aviation, but from the aspect of House of Commons control over its expenditure; and, in view of the fact that when the Estimates come forward it will be too late to prevent this scheme going through, will the, right hon. Gentleman be prepared to receive a deputation to state the case in order that we may have an early discussion of the subject?

The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir. It will not be too late at all. The Air Estimates will be taken in the course of the next fortnight, and no money can be paid until the House has given its sanction. If the House does not give its sanction, then no money will be payable.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Is it not clear that the House of Commons discretion will be completely fettered if this company has been floated arid this money has been subscribed by the public? Is it not a fact that, if the company set on foot all their plans, the House of Commons not have full liberty to reject their scheme?

The PRIME MINISTER: I do not wish to anticipate the course of the debate, but I think the hon. and gallant Member is really quite wrong in his deductions. The Minister for Air has always power to make grants subject to the consent of Parliament in any direction which he thinks will facilitate aviation. This is such an occasion, and this scheme will be debated by the House of Commons. The Secretary f State for Air has no control over any company or body to which he may suggest giving a grant, and if they choose, to issue a prospectus and form a company the Minister cannot prevent them. If such a prospectus appears before the debate takes place, it will be stated perfectly clearly in the prospectus that the giving of a grant entirely depends on the Parliamentary Vote being granted. I do not know myself of my own knowledge whether that prospectus is to be issued in the immediate or the near future.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Is this policy not a direct incentive to people to anticipate filling their pockets at the Government's expense?

FRANCE (AIR EXPENDITURE).

Commander BELLAIRS: 57.
asked the Secretary of State for Air what is the
provision in the 1929 estimates for the French air force and for French civil aviation?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): The total Vote for French air expenditure for 1929 is 1,821 million francs. Owing to the classification of the Votes, it is not possible to give accurate figures for expenditure on the Air Force as opposed to civil aviation.

ROYAL AIR FORCE (GROUNDSMEN).

Mr. KELLY: 58.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether groundsmen have been appointed at all the aerodromes of the Royal Air Force, and, in cases where they have been appointed, whether they do similar work to that they performed when employed as labourers and paying unemployment contributions; and, seeing that as groundsmen they have been informed that unemployment insurance contributions are not payable, what provision will be made for the men in the event of their becoming unemployed?

Sir S. HOARE: As regards the first part of the question, the appointment of groundsmen at all Royal Air Force aerodromes has been authorised, and the posts either have been or are being filled. The appointments are filled locally, subject to Air Ministry approval of the candidates' qualifications, and I have no information whether any of the men selected were employed as labourers on similar work prior to their appointment as groundsmen. It is not improbable that there have been such cases. As regards the second part, in view of the nature of the employment the men are not required to be insured under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and are, therefore, in the same position as other employés who are outside the scope of the Act and for whom provision is not made in the event of their becoming unemployed.

Mr. KELLY: In view of the hardship that is inflicted upon these men, will the right hon. Gentleman go into this matter again, and see whether or not the Ministry of Labour do insist upon these people not being insured?

Sir S. HOARE: I am told that it is a matter of Statute, under the Unemploy-
ment Insurance Act. We have not any power to bring them under that Act.

Mr. KELLY: While I do not want to dispute the right hon. Gentleman's statement here, may I ask if he will go into the matter again?

Sir S. HOARE: I will certainly consult my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.

BILLS PRESENTED.

HOSPITALS (RELIEF FROM RATING) BILL,

"to grant complete or partial relief from rates in the case of certain hereditaments used for the purpose of hospitals, infirmaries, dispensaries, convalescent homes, nursing homes, sanatoria, and other similar uses, or in connection therewith," presented by Colonel Gretton; supported by Major Glyn, Rear-Admiral Beamish, Colonel Applin, Sir Robert Hamilton Lieut.-Colonel James, and Mr. Charleton; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 5th March, and to be printed. [Bill 59.]

DONCASTER AREA DRAINAGE BILL,

"to make provision for the better drainage of a certain area drained by the Rivers Don, Went, Torne, Aire, Ouse, and Trent; and for purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. Guinness; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 60.]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1929.

Estimates presented for the year 1929 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILLS (CONSOLIDATION) (JOINT COMMITTEE).

Report in respect of Sheffield Gas (Consolidation) Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords) brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Chairmen's Panel: That they had appointed Sir Robert Sanders to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A (in respect of the Reconstituted Cream Bill). Report to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Considered in Committee. [Progress, 8th February.]

[65TH ALLOTTED DAY.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE sin the Chair.]

CLAUSE 25.—(Provisions for failure of town councils of small burghs with respect to water supply, etc.)

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Elliot): I beg to move, in page 29, line 4, to leave out the word "Board," and to insert instead thereof the words "Department of Health."

This is a purely drafting Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Major ELLIOT: I beg to move, in page 29, to leave out from the word "the," in line 5, to the end, of the Clause, and to insert instead thereof the words:
local authority of any area (in this Section referred to as the defaulting authority') have failed to discharge their functions with respect to the provision of a water supply, or of sewers or drains, or with respect to housing, or have failed to discharge any other functions relating to public health, the Department may by order authorise any other local authority to discharge, for such period as the order may prescribe, the functions of the defaulting local authority which that authority have failed to discharge, and any expenses incurred by the other authority in so doing shall be a debt due by the defaulting authority to the other authority.
Provided that the defaulting local authority may appeal to the Department against any excessive and unreasonable expenditure of the other authority and the Department if satisfied that there has been excessive and unreasonable expenditure may reduce the sum payable by the defaulting authority to the other authority by such amount as they think proper.
(2) Any sum payable by the defaulting authority to the, other authority under this Section in respect of expenses shall be defrayed by the defaulting authority in like manner as if the expenses had been incurred by that authority.
(3) Any expenses incurred by the other authority under this Section shall be defrayed in such manner as the order may prescribe.
I have to make a personal apology to the Committee on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Influenza is no respecter of persons, as my friends on the Front Opposition Bench will realise, and my right hon. Friend is prevented by reasons of health from attending the Committee. I am sure that we all hope that we shall see him hack again at an early date.
This Amendment is to meet the point advanced by the Convention of Burghs. In moving it, I would draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that, as it stands on the Paper, there is a small printing slip; the words "excessive or unreasonable expenditure," in line 11, and also in line 12, should be printed "excessive and unreasonable expenditure." The Committee will remember that, in the original White Paper issued by the Minister, it was suggested that certain functions should be taken over by the newly reconstituted county authorities which, on subsequent consideration, were left to the burghal authorities, namely, water, housing and drainage. It was made clear by the Secretary of State at that time that, in respect of some of these functions, notably in connection with water, certain over-riding powers should remain in cases where these important functions were not being properly carried out. In discussing this matter with the representatives of the burghs, Sir Henry Keith acted as spokesman for the burghs, and conceded that it was quite right that, in any case in which these functions were not being properly carried out, they should be carried out by some other authority, and he considered that there should be some sort of inquiry at which these cases should be discussed. The Clause in the Bill gives effect to that proposal. During the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, hon. Members in various parts of the House, notably, I think, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), pointed out that this was a one-sided proposal, in that it did not deal with the corresponding case in a county, and, on considering that, we thought it only reasonable that the Clause should work both ways. The Amendment on the Paper gives effect to that suggestion, so that, if a burgh is in default the functions can be taken
over by another local authority, posssibly the county authority, and, if the authority in a county area were in default, the duties of that area might be taken over by another authority, possibly a burgh authority. I think that there will be general agreement because the Amendment carries out Amendments standing in the names of Members of the Opposition parties and also of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Lieut.-Colonel Moore).
I shall deal only very briefly with two Amendments to the Amendment suggested by the Government, one in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) to the effect that in respect of any authority failing to discharge its functions the Department shall by order authorise any other local authority to discharge any of those functions of the defaulting authority which that authority has failed to discharge. We think that that would tighten up the Clause to an altogether unworkable extent. I would ask the Committee to note the next Amendment on the Paper in the name of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), because it goes the other way and weakens the Clause so much that it would equally be unworkable in the opposite sense. The Liberal Amendment suggests that, instead of the word "order," in line 5, there should be inserted the words "agreement with the authorities concerned." Obviously the Clause is only meant to operate where every possible effort has been made to obtain agreement and has failed. We therefore think, on the one side, that the Amendment to be moved from the Labour Benches is too tight, because it would not allow the Department any latitude after inquiry to allow the defaulting authority to put its house in order, and, on the other side, that the Liberal Amendment is too slack. There would be no meaning in the Clause at all. I move the Amendment as it stands on the Order Paper, and I trust the Committee will agree to it.

Mr. STEPHEN: rose—

The CHAIRMAN: I think it would be more convenient to get rid of the existing words in order to have the other
words before the Committee. Then the discussion will be perfectly in order.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Question proposed, "That those words he there inserted."

Mr. STEPHEN: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 5, to leave out the word "may," and to insert instead thereof the word "shall."
We have heard the explanation of the Under-Secretary of State far Scotland. While recognising the importance of the Amendment, I do not think that my colleagues on these benches would be really satisfied if it were not made mandatory. We considered the importance of the word "may" as against the word "shall," and we had before us the argument adduced by the Under-Secretary that there is the possibility that the word "shall" might make the power of the Department too great. After due consideration, we came to the conclusion that it was better that there should be placed upon the Department the obligation to take definite steps in regard to a defaulting authority. Everyone knows that when a local authority defaults on any of these matters the Central Department is never in a hurry to compel it to take the necessary steps to remedy the existing state of affairs. The central authority, as far as our experience goes, is always willing to deal very gently with offenders when they are local authorities. We believe that our Amendment would strengthen the hands of the Central Department in seeing that the services which the local authorities have been called upon to discharge are properly carried out.
The Committee will observe that these are very important services very intimately connected with the health of the people. If under this new organisation of local government in Scotland, there are to be so many of the districts that are not going to obtain proper attention from the county councils in connection with local services, we ought to give the people who are deprived of their powers the opportunity of going to the Department and saying: "You have to do this as our people are suffering, because their housing requirements and
other matters are not being properly considered." The Department may say: "Well, we will consult with the other authority and consider the matter." So they may go month after month, even into years, before anything is done. To get the Scottish Office to move at any time is very difficult. For instance, in connection with the application for small landholdings in Scotland it is difficult to get the Scottish Office to make a move.
I believe that if the word "may" is allowed to remain, the Clause will practically become a dead letter. The duty should be placed upon the central department to come in when one section of the community is being penalised owing to the authority over an area defaulting in regard to their duties. The central department should be compelled to take steps. It is not enough in our opinion to say "may" It is quite true, as was pointed out by the Under-Secretary in moving his Amendment, that our friends below the Gangway are of a different opinion and that their Amendment will put a great many difficulties in the way of the Scottish Office taking the necessary steps. Their Amendment would certainly make everything impossible and render the Clause absolutely ineffective. The Clause, with the addition of the Amendment moved by the Under-Secretary, will be ineffective enough, but, if the Liberal Amendment were accepted, it would make it a dead letter altogether. I hope that Members of the Committee will indicate their views in connection with this question. There is much that can be said, I quite admit, in favour of the view advanced from, the Government's Front Bench. I believe, if the Committee will consider all the circumstances, they will realise that it is just as well to put it in the mandatory form by substituting for the word "may" the word "shall."

4.0 p.m.

Mr. W. M. WATSON: I am sure we are all sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman's chief is not present this afternoon, and we hope it will not be long before he is back in his place. In opposing the Government Amendment. I take rather a different view from that suggested by my hon. Friend. As far as I am concerned, I would rather see the Clause taken out altogether.

The CHAIRMAN: I would point out that we are only on the question whether the word shall be "may" or "shall"—whether it is to be mandatory or optional. The general question in the Amendment can be debated later.

Mr. WATSON: I understand we are debating whether the word is to be "may" or "shall," and I have already expressed my view in regard to the whole Clause, because I can still see difficulties whether the word is "may" or "shall." A burgh may be asked to undertake work that ought to have been done by a defaulting county council. It is always the ease that there are no defaults as far as county councils ace concerned. It will be only the small burghs, which are being forced into this county scheme, that will be regarded as defaulting under this Bill. My view is that this is placing in the hands of the county council the power to do things—

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member's remarks are perfectly relevant to the main Amendment, hut outside the limited point whether the Department may or shall do what is prescribed in the Clause.

Mr. WATSON: I readily bow to your ruling, Mr. Hope, but the ground for discussion is very narrow, and my general feeling is that the matter should have been taken out altogether.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: I rise to support the word "may," and also to take this opportunity of thanking the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary for introducing the Amendment. The word "may," to my mind, is far more suitable than the word "shall." We have got too much bureaucracy, as, no doubt, hon. Members opposite would be the first to acknowledge, and why they should be advocates of the word "shall," and thereby further interfere with the duties and functions of the local authorities, I cannot understand. The proposal of the Government far more adequately and properly expresses the attitude of the people generally.

Mr. WRIGHT: I want to say a few words in favour of the word "shall." The items dealt with in this Clause are of vital importance to the people. It is
within the memory of hon. Members present that houses have collapsed with fatal consequences to the inhabitants. It is quite obvious that in such cases the provisions would not be adequate. Drains, water and similar services are also of vital importance to the poor people. I have seen houses in Scotland where no decent man would kennel his dog. There has been a great deal of neglect. The health of the poor people in Scotland is on a much lower standard than that of those who are able to obtain the amenities of life, such as more space and air. Therefore, I do not think that these matters should be left to the discretion of these authorities by introducing the word "may." It should be compulsory, so that there may be a very much higher standard of health than there is at the present time.

Mr. SHINWELL: The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Lieut.-Colonel Moore) is surely mistaken in his conception of this proposal. It is not at all a question of bureaucracy. Here is a proposal which asks, in effect, that in the event of default, as far as the burgh authority is concerned, some other body should be empowered to step in. The only point is whether the power should be mandatory, or whether it should be left to the Department to come to a decision according to the circumstances, or perhaps not come to a decision at all. That is the only issue involved. If these powers be required, if they be regarded as necessary in circumstances that may arise—I agree that it is entirely hypothetical: one does not know whether these powers will be required or not—but assuming the Government believe that these powers may be required some day, surely the proper thing to do is to make them mandatory; otherwise it is no use asking for powers at all. It is no use talking about defaulting authorities unless you are to use powers of an obligatory character against the defaulting authorities. I cannot understand why the Government boggle over a simple matter of this kind. It is much better to say that the powers are required, and that they are going to insist that these powers shall be put into operation at the proper time.

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. William Watson): I agree that the Amendment
is not unimportant. The Committee will observe that, in the first place, the Department have to consider whether there is in the area of a local authority a neglect of one of the three duties referred to here. Take the question of failure to provide a proper water supply. They have got to make up their mind whether there is such a failure before there is a public inquiry. If they are satisfied that there has been a failure, then they have a public inquiry. If they get a verdict, as a result of the public inquiry, confirming the view that there has been a failure, there then arises the question which we are now considering. I suggest that there might be cases where the local authority might be perfectly justified in maintaining for the time that there was no such failure. But imagine a case where the Department say: "You are not giving an adequate water supply, and you can do it with your existing water scheme." The burgh replies: "No; we cannot do it with the existing condition of things. We should have to spend more money and would require your authority for that purpose." The Department order an inquiry, and that inquiry substantiates the Department's view. There is no great blame on the burgh or council for having taken their view and maintained it, but they are found to be wrong. Surely, it would be wiser for the Department to say: "Now that it is settled there is such a default, we give you six months in which to put it right." Under the Amendment to the Amendment the Department at once would have to issue an Order, and that is the very practical difficulty in the way of accepting it.
One would hope that if such circumstances arose, or if there were a fear of such circumstances arising, a Clause like this would be more useful as a deterrent than to be actually called into operation, and I do suggest there may be cases of a bona fide dispute as to whether there is a real default or not. Once that has been settled, once the Department have ordered a public inquiry, and the inquiry makes clear that there is a default, is it suggested that the Department are going to do nothing? It would be a clear neglect of their duty not to see, by some means or other, that the defect is put right, and no one suggests that the central Department is going to neglect that duty. What we want is to give the
people who ought to do the work an opportunity of putting it right themselves. That is the reason why the Government are not prepared to accept the Amendment to the Amendment. This is a business question, and I do suggest that the wiser course is to leave in the word "may," for the two reasons I have suggested, first, that otherwise the Department would be forced to issue an order the moment the verdict of the public inquiry was ascertained; and, secondly, because it is unbelievable that once the Department have got a verdict from the public inquiry that there is such default, they will stay their hand and not see by some method or other that the, public health is safeguarded as regards, for instance, the water supply. We all want to get at the same end, and the question is, what is the most practical and effective method? I say that the most practical and effective method is to get the people themselves to put the matter right, and therefore I ask hon. Members not to press their Amendment.

Mr. WHEATLEY: There is one point of view which the Lord Advocate may have overlooked, and it is one which is in the minds of my colleagues on these benches. There will never be any difficulty in getting the Health Department to take the side of the county council against the burgh. They will always be ready, and naturally ready, to take the side of the great against the small. In this Bill you are taking away certain powers from the burghs and giving them to the county council. Should not the use of one local authority against another be reciprocal?

The LORD ADVOCATE: None of the powers the exercise of which is dealt with by this Clause are transferred powers; they are all powers which are left with the burghs.

Mr. WHEATLEY: That certainly minimises the point I was making, but the main consideration is still with us, that it is quite easy to get support for the county council against the burghs. There might be default in county councils, but I do not think the Department of Health would take steps to instruct the burghs to deal with the defaults of a county council as it would if it were the other way about. My hon. Friends feel that as that is the disposition in the cen-
tral department at the present time, it should be made an obligation upon the Department of Health, and whether it is a defaulting county council or a defaulting burgh, it should be treated in the same way. Therefore, we propose that the Government should make it an obligation on the department to take sides, when the necessity arises, with the small burgh against the county council.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: May I say how much we regret the absence of the Secretary of State for Scotland? We hope that he will soon be restored to health. After the explanlation given by the Lord Advocate, I think it is absolutely conclusive that in this case "may" is the right word. We do not intend to move the next Amendment, to leave out the word "order" and insert instead thereof the words "agreement with the authorities concerned."

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I do not think that the explanation is wholly satisfactory. We cannot conceive it possible that any action will be taken in the circumstances indicated by the Lord Advocate, but where it is actually a case of default then, of course, there must be no failure in the application of the provision.

Dr. DRUMMOND SHIELS: I think that "shall" is the proper word to use in this case, because the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman has put down says that these powers will only be put into operation when the local authority has failed. It cannot be proved to have failed until after the inquiry has been made. It cannot, further, have failed until it has had a reasonable time after the result of the inquiry to carry out any improvements which the inquiry has shown to be necessary. It is, therefore, perfectly logical and proper, when the burgh of the county council has been proved to have failed to discharge its duty, and a certain time has been allowed to elapse after the inquiry, that there should be no question that the department should then put into operation the powers indicated in this Clause. Therefore, I think there is good ground for our sticking to the word which we have suggested.

Question put, "That the word "may" stand part of the proposed Amendment.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 196; Noes, 86.

Division No. 205.]
AYES.
[4.20 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut. -Colonel
Ganzoni, Sir John
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Alexander, E. E (Leyton)
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Nelson, Sir Frank


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Gates, Percy
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)


Apsley, Lord
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Grant, Sir J. A.
Nuttall, Ellis


Atholl, Duchess of
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Owen, Major G.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Penny, Frederick George


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Hacking, Douglas H.
Perring, Sir William George


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Hamilton, Sir George
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Berry, Sir George
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Bethel, A.
Hammersley, S. S.
Price, Major C. W M.


Betterton, Henry B.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Radford, E. A.


Blundell, F. N.
Hartington, Marquess of
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Ropner, Major L.


Briggs, J. Harold
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Ross, R. D.


Briscoe, Richard George
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Herbert, S. (York. N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Hilton, Cecil
Rye, F. G.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks,Newh'y)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Sandon, Lord


Campbell, E. T.
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Savery, S. S.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew,W.)


Cayzer Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth.S.)
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Skelton, A. N.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n. & Kinc'dine, C.)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm.,W.)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Smithers, Waldron


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Christie. J. A.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Iveagh, Countess of
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen't)
Strauss, E. A.


Clarry, Reginald George
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Clayton, G. C.
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Templeton, W. P.


Cooper, A. Duff
Knox, Sir Alfred
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Cope, Major Sir William
Lamb, J. Q.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Couper, J. B.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Loder, J. de V.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Looker, Herbert William
Ward. Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Macintyre, Ian
Watts, Sir Thomas


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
McLean, Major A.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Wells, S. R.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Wiggins, William Martin


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Eden, Captain Anthony
Margesson, Capt. D
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Meller, R. J.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Ellis, R. G.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Meyer, Sir Frank
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Everard, W. Lindsay
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Womersley, W. J.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Wood, Rt. Hon Sir Kingsley


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)



Fermoy, Lord
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Ford, Sir P. J.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Sir Victor


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Morris, R. H.
Warrender.


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)





NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife. West)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Greenall, T.


Ammon, Charles George
Cape, Thomas
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)


Barr, J.
Charleton, H. C.
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)


Batey, Joseph
Clarke, A. B.
Hardie, George D


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Connolly, M.
Harris, Percy A.


Bellamy, A.
Cove, W. G.
Hayes, John Henry


Benn, Wedgwood
Dalton, Ruth (Bishop Auckland)
Hirst, G. H.


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Dalton, Hugh
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)


Bondfield, Margaret
Day, Harry
John, William (Rhondda, West)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Duncan, C.
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)


Broad, F. A.
Gillett, George M.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)




Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Potts, John S.
Townend, A. E.


Kelly, W. T.
Purcell, A. A.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Kennedy, T.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)


Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Scrymgeour, E.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondde)


Lantbury, George
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Presten)
Wellock, Wilfred


Lawrence, Susan
Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Welsh, J. C.


Lee, F.
Shinwell, E.
Westwood, J.


Lindley, F. W.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Lowth, T.
Smillie, Robert
Williams, David (Swansea, East).


MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Mackinder, W.
Snell, Harry
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


MacNeill-Weir, L.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Maxton, James
Stephen, Campbell
Wright, W.


Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (palsley)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Sutton, J. E.



Palin, John Henry
Taylor, R. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Paling, w.
Thurtie, Ernest
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.


Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Tinker, John Joseph
 T. Henderson.

Question proposed, "That the proposed words be there inserted."

Mr. STEPHEN: In regard to the alteration from the word "or" to the word "and"—"excessive and unreasonable expenditure"—would it not be well to make the Clause read "and/or"? There may be expense which is unreasonable, but which does not come under the head of "excessive," and vice versa.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I prefer the words as proposed. They exactly correspond to the Clause dealing with the

circumstances under which the Secretary of State may reduce the grants in respect of failure on the part of authorities, Clause 50, where hon. Members will find the phrase "excessive and unreasonable." I hope the hon. Member will not press the point.

Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 180; Noes, 103.

Division No. 206.]
AYES.
[4.30 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut. Colonel
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Herbert,S.(York, N.R.,Scar. & Wh'by)


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Hilton, Cecil


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Crookshank, Col. C. de W (Berwick)
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Apsley, Lord
Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)


Atholl, Duchess of
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Davies, Maj. Geo. P. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Horne, Rt. Hon. sir Robert S.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Davies, Dr. Vernon
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Eden, Captain Anthony
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Berry, Sir George
Elliot, Major Walter E.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.


Bethel, A.
Ellis, R. G.
Iveagh, Countess of


Betterton, Henry B.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)


Blundell, F. N.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Boothby, R. J. G.
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Faile, Sir Bertram G.
King, Commodore Henry Douglas


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Briggs, J. Harold
Fermoy, Lord
Knox, Sir Alfred


Briscoe, Richard George
Ford, Sir P. J.
Lamb, J. Q.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Ganzoni, Sir John
Loder, J. de v.


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Gates, Percy
Looker, Herbert William


Buckingham, Sir H.
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Campbell, E. T.
Gower, Sir Robert
Mac Andrew, Major Charles Glen


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
MacIntyre, Ian


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Grant, Sir J. A
McLean, Major A.


Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Mac Robert, Alexander M.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Chamberlain, Rt.Hn.Sir J.A.(Birm.,W.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywoo")
Hacking, Douglas H.
Margesson, Captain D.


Charter is, Brigadier-General J.
Hamilton, Sir George
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Christie, J. A.
Hammersley, S. S.
Meller, R. J.


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd


Clarry, Reginald George
Hartington, Marquess of
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-


Clayton, G. C.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Henderson,Capt.R. R. (Oxt'd, Henley)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Cooper, A. Duff
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)


Cope, Major Sir William
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Couper, J. B.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Nelson, Sir Frank


Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Sandeman, N. Stewart
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn.W.G. (Ptrst'ld.)
Sandon, Lord
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Savery, S. S.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Nuttall, Ellis
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew,W.)
Warrender, Sir Victor


Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William
Skelton, A. N.
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Perring, Sir William George
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Watts, Sir Thomas


Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Pownall, Sir Assheton
Smithers, Waldron
Wells, S R.


Price, Major C. W. M.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Radford, E. A.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Ropner, Major L.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Womersley, W. J.


Ross, R. D.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Ruggies-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.
Tasker, R Inigo.



Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Templeton, W. P.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Salmon, Major I.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Mr. Penny.


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Harris, Percy A.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hayes, John Henry
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Ammon, Charles George
Hirst, G. H.
Shinwell, E.


Barr, J.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Batey, Joseph
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smillie, Robert


Bellamy, A.
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Benn, Wedgwood
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Snell, Harry


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bondfield, Margaret
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Stephen, Campbell


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Broad, F. A.
Kelly, W. T.
Strauss, E. A.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Kennedy, T
Sutton, J. E.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Taylor, R. A.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Lansbury, George
Thurtie, Ernest


Cape, Thomas
Lawrence, Susan
Tinker, John Joseph


Charleton, H. C.
Lee, F.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Clarke, A. B.
Lindley, F. W.
Townend, A. E.


Connolly, M.
Lowth, T.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Cove, W. G.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)


Dalton, Ruth (Bishop Auckland)
Mackinder, W.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Dalton, Hugh
MacLaren, Andrew
Wellock.,Wilfred


Day, Harry
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Welsh, J. C.


Duncan, C.
Maxton, James
Westwood, J.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Morris, R. H.
Wiggins, William Martin


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Gillett, George M.
Owen, Major G.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Palin, John Henry
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
Pethick- Lawrence, F. W.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Greenall, T.
Potts, John S.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Purcell, A. A.
Wright, W.


Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)



Hardie, George D.
Scrymgeour, E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—




Mr. T. Henderson and Mr. Paling.


Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 26.—(County medical officer of health and sanitary inspector to act for small burghs.)

Mr. W. ADAMSON: I beg to move, in page 29, line 32, to leave out the words "or sanitary inspector."
Unless this Amendment is accepted serious consequences may arise in a number of what are called small burghs, but which nevertheless have a considerable population. These burghs may be deprived of the services of whole-time sanitary inspectors, a serious matter for them, and I hope the Under-Secretary of State will accept the Amendment. If the
control of this work passes into the hands of the county councils, a county council may appoint a chief sanitary inspector for the whole of the county, and in his wisdom he may send a sanitary inspector to one part of the county one day and to another part of the county another day. That in my opinion would be a retrograde step, and might have serious consequences. I know a number of these small burghs where there is plenty of work for a full-time sanitary inspector if the health of the people is to be properly attended to. The Amendment is one of substance and deserves, I think, favourable consideration.

Mr. W. M. WATSON: I hope the Under-Secretary of State is going to accept the Amendment. I do not think the position of these smaller burghs has been sufficiently considered by the Government, and, before the Amendment is brushed aside I hope their position will be considered more carefully. In some of these burghs there is sufficient work for a full-time sanitary inspector; in others the offices of sanitary inspector and burgh surveyor are combined and the official finds sufficient work to do. The proposal is that as the position of sanitary inspector within these smaller burghs becomes vacant the sanitary inspector for the county is to be the sanitary inspector of the burgh. What is to he the position in those burghs where the offices of sanitary inspector and surveyor are combined? Is the burgh still to go on with a full-time burgh surveyor after his work has been cut in half? If that is the case it will mean more expenditure for these smaller burghs. That is an aspect of the matter which, I think, requires more consideration. It will not mean any saving, as far as these burghs are concerned, but an increased expenditure, because they will have to retain their burgh surveyors in order to attend to the work of water supply, drainage, housing, and other duties, which are properly regarded as the functions of a burgh surveyor. This official will have to be retained by these burghs and, in addition, they will be called upon to pay a certain amount towards the expenses and maintenance of the county sanitary inspector. I hope the Government will consider this aspect of the matter.
I deny that there will be any increased efficiency under the scheme in the Bill because you may have the sanitary inspector of the county residing many miles from a burgh which requires a sanitary inspector to be resident in the burgh itself; and where there has been a sanitary inspector for many years before you will only get a few flying visits from the county sanitary inspector. So many duties have been imposed on sanitary inspectors that in any burgh of any size at all, from 5,000 to 10,000 in population, there is sufficient work for a sanitary inspector. I hope that the matter will be considered further by the Government, and that this small concession will be
granted. So far as the medical officer of health is concerned, we raise no objection. As a matter of fact the tendency for many years has been for the smaller burghs to appoint the county medical officer as the medical officer for those burghs, hut the Under-Secretary cannot say that the county sanitary inspectors have been asked to come in and undertake sanitary duties within the burghs.

Sir ROBERT HORNE: I would reinforce the views which have been expressed by hon. Members opposite. I agree that it may be a proper thing for a medical officer of health of a burgh to be the county council medical officer also, because the latter is an appointment with wide ramifications and the medical officer employs a large number of people under his guidance to deal with questions of health in the county. But when you come to the questions of sanitation in any particular district, it seems to me apparent that you have a business which is purely local. When you consider the question of the sanitation of a small burgh there is obviously quite enough for any one man to do. I am accordingly very strongly of opinion that while it is quite right that the medical officer should he a person with a large variety of duties and with people under him, in connection with sanitation yell have a localised matter, and the sanitary inspector should be a person whose duty it is to look after the particular area with Which he is concerned. Take the smallest of the burghs. There is room for a sanitary inspector to look after the health of the community there. I think that sanitary inspection should he excluded from the ambit of this Clause.

Major-General Sir ROBERT HUTCHISON: I agree with what has been just said. Many of these burghs have a population as big as 17,000, and it is a full-time job for any one man to look after the health conditions. Of course much depends on the kind of burgh. There is the burgh of the residential type and the burgh of the industrial type. When you have congested areas, as in many of our burghs, the work of the sanitary inspector is certainly a whole-time job. We are looking forward and are hoping for better conditions in the general sanitation of Scotland. The well-being of out burghs, especially the industrial burghs,
depends very largely on the supervision and the activity of the sanitary inspector in pointing out defects and preparing the way for improvement.

Major ELLIOT: Of course, this is a matter of argument, but I hope to be able to adduce reasons which will lead the Committee to support the Government in the view expressed in the Clause. The position is not exactly as some of my hon. Friends seem to have conceived it. They have all spoken as though, at the present time, there were full-time men employed on this work. At any rate all have said that there is enough work for a full-time man in looking after the affairs of each individual burgh.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: Some burghs.

Major ELLIOT: And that even the smallest burghs have room for a full-time appointment. One hon. Member said that the practice which had recently grown up, of the county medical officer acting in the burghs, found no parallel in the case of the county sanitary officer. I ask the Committee to consider the actual figures. Of 179 small burghs in Scotland 26 have appointed the county sanitary officer to act for them, 106 have full-time officers, and 47 have part-time sanitary inspectors. It is, therefore, by no means the general thing to have a whole-time officer looking after the sanitary affairs of one of the smaller burghs.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman include as part-time men those who are also burgh surveyors?

Major ELLIOT: Undoubtedly. I ask hon. Members, and particularly my medical colleagues in the House, to consider the position of a sanitary officer. That position is growing more difficult than it was a few years ago. It is becoming more and more a technical and highly skilled appointment. It is of great importance to get whole-time skilled men into these important posts. Some of the correspondence which the Board have had in recent years shows that some of the smaller burghs do not by any means rise to the modern conception of good sanitation. I have in mind the case of a burgh which appointed as a sanitary inspector a man who doubled that task with the duties of caretaker of
the local burial ground. That is a most unsuitable part-time occupation. There are other similar examples. On the Board we have done our utmost for years to raise the status of the sanitary officer, and to make it clear that the position is not less important, but in some ways more important, than that of the medical officer of health. We have done our utmost to secure that the officers appointed shall be holders of the sanitary inspector's certificate of the Royal Sanitary Association of Scotland.
These are posts which it is much more suitable to have held as whole-time appointments, but we find that in practice the appointments have not been held as whole-time appointments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) stressed the intimate and domestic nature of sanitation and the desirability of a close association of the sanitary officer with the locality. With that view we all agree. But it should be remembered that a duty of the sanitary officer is to report, and in some cases to report against the very people, in the smaller authorities, who directly employ them. That is a very invidious position in which to put a man.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it not the case that the county sanitary officers are in the direct employment of the county councils, the members of which are also property owners?

Major ELLIOT: But my hon. Friend has failed to grasp the importance of the position of a whole-time sanitary officer who cannot be removed from his position without the consent of the Board of Health.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It is the same in the burghs.

Major ELLIOT: The sanitary inspector there cannot be removed from his part-time employment as a sanitary officer but he can be sacked from one of the other employments which he may hold.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Has he ever been?

Major ELLIOT: We have known cases of pressure being brought to bear, and anyone who has seen such pressure applied knows that it can have effect in other ways than in dismissal. I ask the Committee to address itself to the very important matter of public health, and not to be deterred by the question of the
prestige of this or that local authority. It is a matter of first-rate importance that the sanitary inspectors of the future should first of all be men of high technical qualifications, and, secondly, that they should be men of independence, not removable and not even subject to pressure from the very persons against whom they may have to report. These objects can be attained, first of all, by making sure that the area over which a man operates is wide enough to secure a first-rate man, and, secondly, by making the appointment a whole-time appointment, so that the man is not subject to any pressure from those against whom he reports.
If we are all agreed on those points, I ask the. Committee to agree that the method of the Clause is the most suitable method. There is no disturbance of existing appointments, and nothing will happen until one of the appointments becomes vacant, but on a vacancy arising it should be filled by a man of high qualifications who will devote his whole time to the work. When we have done that we shall, of course, do our utmost to see—it is possible for us to secure it—that the man preserves local touch and resides in the area where his main activities will be conducted, and that he is not kept out of touch with the area by being sent there only occasionally on flying visits. This is riot a party point, but is a question as to the best machinery for raising the sanitary level of the burghs of Scotland, and I claim that here and now we have an excellent opportunity of raising that level.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: How on earth can a man who has a large landward area to cover deal with burghs like Arbroath, Montrose and Brechin? How can he find the necessary time for the work? It would be physically beyond him.

Major ELLIOT: It is not suggested for a moment that a man will be made to cover a whole county such as Lanark or Fife. He will work with assistants.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It is clear that the Under-Secretary has no conception of the difficulties with which the local authorities are faced. He has given figures to show that a large proportion of sanitary inspectors in the employment of burghs are only part-time officers, and do not devote the whole of their time to the
sanitary work of those burghs. But surely it is obvious that the county sanitary inspectors whom the Bill proposes to appoint to look after the affairs of the burghs will themselves be able to devote only part of their time, and a very small part of their time, to the small burghs. So that in future, under this system, there will be less time spent by the sanitary officers upon the sanitary affairs of the burghs. That is the gravamen of the charge against the Clause. When the Bill was drafted it was proposed to take away from the small burghs powers which later on the Secretary of State saw fit to let them retain. For example, it was proposed to take away drainage from them, and all the consequences of that. But the hon. and gallant Gentleman has retained in the Bill a Clause which would have been suitable if he had been taking away from the local authorities the sanitary work. He is leaving sanitary work to the control of the local council, and he is taking away from the council the official on whom it will depend for the operation of those sanitary duties.
I can scarcely credit that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has ever spent five minutes in thinking of the actual administration of a small burgh. What does sanitary work mean? It means the proper supervision of back courts, the proper cleaning of streets, and, far more than that—I could state 20 things—the clearing away of nuisances, and the making of the place habitable and healthy for the people who live in the area. These duties are specifically preserved to the local authorities in the small burghs, yet the Government propose to take away from the small burghs the control of the one official upon whom they depend for the effective supervision of these duties. The hon. and gallant Gentleman never met that point. Will he tell us how any small burgh in future will be able properly to undertake its sanitary and health duties if its official is under the control of another body and not of the health committee of the small burgh? The thing is absolutely impossible.

Major ELLIOT: No. The man holding the position of burgh sanitary inspector is under the control of the sanitary committee of the small burgh.

Mr. JOHNSTON: No.

Major ELLIOT: But he is.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Under this Clause, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is taking power to hand over the appointment and control of the sanitary inspector to the county council.

Major ELLIOT: Oh, no. There is no suggestion in the Clause of abolishing the position of burgh sanitary inspector, and, whoever holds that position is under the control of the health committee of the burgh. The Clause only specifies that that person should be the same person as the county sanitary inspector.

Mr. JOHNSTON: The words of the Clause are these: He is to be
the officer of the county council of the county.

The LORD ADVOCATE: The words are that he
shall be appointed to the post.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It says that the sanitary inspector,
being the officer of the county council of the county within which the burgh is situate, shall be appointed to the post.
He is to be under the county council, and the small burgh in future has to pay a proportion of his salary to the county council; the county council has to distribute its sanitary officer and his duties over a large area in the county, including the small burghs.

Major ELLIOT: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston), whom we are all so pleased to see back again to take part in our discussions; but really it cannot be denied that a part-time man, who is an officer of a burgh during the time that he is acting as officer of the burgh, is subject to the control of the burgh in so far as they pay his salary, order him about, and tell him what to do.

Mr. JOHNSTON: But after he is dead a new man is to be appointed, and he is not to be an officer of the burgh council.

Major ELLIOT: I was pointing out, not what would happen after he is dead, but that a man appointed to the position of burgh sanitary inspector is ordered about by the burgh council, is paid by them, and does what they tell him. The only point is that the burgh council cannot remove him, and they cannot remove him now.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Well, it is a case of hard swearing. I leave it to any hon. Member to read Clause 26 for himself. The Clause does not give the slightest indication of the interpretation which the hon. and gallant Gentleman puts upon it. Every local authority in Scotland, including the Convention of Royal Burghs—men who have spent their lives in the administration of the small burghs—believes that the interpretation of the Clause which I have given is the right one. I have never heard anyone, in discussing this Clause or this Bill, maintain that if the Clause is passed the sanitary inspector, who will be appointed by the county council and paid by the county council, less a contribution to his salary to be paid by the burgh, will be, in fact, the servant of the burgh. In tact, he will be no servant of the burgh at all.

Major ELLIOT: Let me ask the hon. Gentleman what is his interpretation of the position of the 26 county sanitary officers who are now acting as burgh men?

Mr. JOHNSTON: The hon. and gallant Gentleman himself, if I understood him aright, in explaining this Bill stood at that Box and said that one of the reasons in justification for this Clause was that when the sanitary inspector was under the control of the small burgh he was subject to economic—I put it no higher than that—influences, which would be absent when he was in the employment of the county council.

Major ELLIOT: The hon. Member was speaking of part-time sanitary inspectors in burghs. I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman—

The CHAIRMAN: I really think this discussion is getting a little wide.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I may be wrong and the hon. and gallant Gentleman may be right, but I should be very interested to hear what other hon. Gentlemen on all sides of the Committee think of this Clause. The right hon. Member for Hill-head (Sir R. Horne) suffered from no such delusion as that under which the Under-Secretary for State suffers. I shall be delighted if the hon. and gallant Gentleman can prove here that, after the passage of the Clause, if it passes as it stands, in fact sanitary inspectors will still remain under the direction and con-
trol of the sanitary committees of the small burghs. It really is not so. When this Clause passes, the local authority—that is, the small burgh—which will still be charged with the duty of looking alter the health and sanitary conditions of the burgh, will find that the control of its officer is in other hands—the hands of the sanitary committee or health committee of the county council. That is an impossible position for any local authority to operate under, and I trust that on further consideration the hon. and gallant Gentleman will see his way to amend the Clause.
I want to dissipate one error which I see frequently creeps into the speeches of the hon. and gallant Gentleman when he is dealing with the public health parts of this Bill. He continually proceeds on the assumption that the initiation, control, and administration of public health in the small burghs is not so efficient as it is in the counties. Where does he get warrant for that? It is not in the public health statistics nor in the death-rate. We have a lower infantile mortality in the small burghs than in the counties. In the small burghs, the death-rates under five years, 10 years, 15 years and 25 years are lower than in the counties. It is only when you get into the higher ages that there is a lower death-rate in the counties; yet the counties ought to be healthier than the burghs. There is no warrant for the assumption, on which the hon. and gallant Gentleman proceeds, that these small burghs have neglected their duties in regard to public health in any way. My experience—and I have spent many years in all forms of local government and have been on all kinds of public bodies in Scotland—tells me that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is taking a retrograde step in regard to public health by proceeding upon the lines which he is now following.
I will give him one illustration. Two years ago in many parts of the country the control of milk and dairies was taken away from the small burghs and handed over to the counties. What was the result? When the burghs conducted inspections of milk and dairies, they had inspections at least four times a year, and tuberculous cows were inspected at least four times a year. Now, under the county councils—those beneficent bodies which the hon. and gallant
Gentleman holds up before our eyes—there is no inspection four times a year; at the most, in some parts it takes place twice, and in other parts once a year. We know definitely of tuberculous cattle going for 11 months and supplying milk in our burghs since this alleged reform has taken place. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman truly said, this is a business matter, and I beg him to give further consideration to the important point that if you leave a local authority, whatever local authority it be, charged with the power of looking after the sanitary affairs of its area, you must leave that local authority in full charge of the official whom it pays and controls.

Captain FANSHAWE: I rise to support the Amendment. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir B. Horne) and the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) have said. I was very pleased that the Secretary of State for Scotland was able to leave the control of sanitation in the hands of the small burghs. If that is done, I think that the small burghs should have men who are totally under their own control. I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State that these officers will be entirely the sanitary inspectors of the small burghs. The small burghs will have a certain call upon their services, but they will not have an absolute call at all times. I agree with the hon. Member for Dundee that the sanitary services in the small burghs are at present carried out more efficiently than in the counties. I think that, at any rate for the present, we should leave the sanitary inspectors of the small burghs under the entire control of those people who have been elected to look after the conditions in those burghs.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Here we have again evidence of the Government's suspicion of local governing authorities. The nights of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are upset by the nightmare of the local governing authorities bringing economic pressure to bear upon these unhappy officials in order to cramp and hamper the sanitary services. In view of the fear of the Government this is in the nature of a Safeguarding of Bureaucrats' Bill, but, in common with other hon. Members who have spoken, I believe in
the local bodies. I believe that the local councils, by their close interest in their own concerns, produce the best results for the health of the county. I referred to this matter in a short speech on the first day of our Debates. I was glad that the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) quoted actual health statistics showing, under every head, how admirably these local burgh authorities have carried out their work. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary said that 26 burghs had already appointed county officials to serve as burgh sanitary inspectors. That shows that where it is convenient, and where public advantage is served by such appointments, the Scottish burghs at present have no hesitation in making them. In other cases, however, it is very much better to appoint a local man who knows the burgh well and who can combine with the duties of sanitary inspector such obviously parallel duties as those of burgh surveyor.
That is a common practice, and I cannot see why a man who is intimately acquainted with all that concerns the burgh and takes a pride in the work should not be as efficient a sanitary inspector—even if he combines with that office the office of burgh surveyor—as a man who comes from the county and whose main interest must be the service of the county. It is a well-known truth that a man cannot serve two masters. If he has two masters he will serve the stronger; and a man serving a large and important county authority and drawing the most of his salary from that authority, will be guided by the instructions which he receives from that authority. He will serve their interests when and where those interests conflict with the interests of the burgh. It is absurd to say that a man is actually under the control of the burgh, because, when he passes the burgh boundary, he is nominally under that control, but when he goes outside the boundary again, he suddenly becomes the county sanitary inspector. It has already been stated that in large counties the sanitary inspector will employ assistants. Where there are five or six burghs in the county each of which has appointed the county inspector to be its inspector, those burghs may hardly ever see him in such cases. They will only see any of his assistants who can spare the time to visit them.
I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will reconsider this question. I have also in mind certain burghs in the West of Scotland which are holiday resorts. They are small burghs technically, but in the holiday season their population becomes swollen enormously. Consequently, they have developed important sanitary services, and have the very best sanitary and medical advice. Their services in this respect are in many cases better than the county services. I suggest that it would be ill-advised to interfere with the present arrangement, and I ask the Committee to leave these officers, not merely nominally, but actually, under the control of the burghs.

The LORD ADVOCATE: The desire of the Government is entirely for the improvement of the health of the people and of the sanitary administration of these districts. It occurred to us with the knowledge which he had that there are cases where it would be advantageous and more efficient to have a man who was a whole-time official, and who was paid as a whole-time official. That always makes it easier to get a better qualified man. In saying so one does not wish to throw any kind of aspersion on the many admirable instances of burghs which are working satisfactorily at present. But our desire and intention was to try to meet such cases as I have indicated. It was also clear that we should find cases where an equally good, if not a better arrangement would be to leave the existing condition of things as it is, and allow the burgh to continue carrying on its duties by means of its own independent sanitary inspector, or medical officer of health as the case may be. It was for that purpose that the qualification was put into the Clause giving the central department the opportunity of settling which was the better course.
I wish to make the intention of the Clause quite clear. The Clause provides that on any vacancy arising the county sanitary inspector should then be appointed to the post of burgh sanitary inspector, which is a statutory post, and he would be the burgh sanitary inspector just in the same way as regards control as either the whole-time or part-time sanitary inspector is at present. That is the intention of the Clause, and as far as I am a competent translator, it seems clear enough that that must be the
meaning of the Clause. There is no repeal of any of the statutory provisions such as the Burgh Police Act of 1892 or the Public Health Act of 1897 which apply to the appointment and control of these officers in burghs. As regards the other points which have been raised, we are hampered here also by the regrettable absence of my right bon. Friend the Secretary of State, but I am perfectly willing, if the hon. Member will not press his Amendment at this stage, to reconsider the question of sanitary officers in the light of the discussion which has taken place. There may be room for distinction as regards cases where the sanitary officer is only a part-time officer and cases where the burgh is already employing a whole-time officer, but I suggest that the whole matter might be reconsidered.

Dr. SHIELS: I suggest that the form of the Amendment shows that it has not been put forward in any obstructive way. The question of the appointment of the medical officers of health has not been traversed at all, although we realise many burghs in Scotland will be reluctant to depart from the system of having their own medical officers, and undoubtedly many of these medical officers have done and are doing excellent work. Undoubtedly, it is the modern trend in public health to have larger administrative areas for the medical officers of health. Therefore we have not opposed the proposal in the Clause—which has a reservation—as regards medical officers of health. As regards sanitary inspectors, however, the position is quite different. I agree with the Under-Secretary that a sanitary inspector with a multiplicity of posts is not desirable. In some of the smaller burghs, where that is the position, no doubt the work could be more suitably done by the county officer. On the other hand, in my own division, for instance, there is the burgh of Mussel-burgh, which has a population of 17,500. It is ridiculous to say that a burgh like that has not sufficient work to occupy a full-time and highly-qualified officer. I had a conference with the representatives of that burgh, and while they were reluctantly agreeable to the medical officer part of this proposal, they definitely stated that they wished to retain their own sanitary inspector. If
it is true that the sanitary inspector, as the Under-Secretary said, is going to be the servant of the burgh, why then should he not be appointed by the burgh? If he is going to be so closely identified with the burgh as the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggested, why not leave the arrangement for appointment as it is at present? I suggest that in reconsidering the matter, the Government should take into account the question of whether at least burghs of 10,000 and over should not be allowed to retain the privilege which they now have of appointing their own official to look after their own sanitary requirements.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I support the Amendment because a sanitary inspector's job is obviously a localised job. To take the case of my own county, I cannot imagine anything more absurd than to have a county sanitary inspector who might be away in a very distant part of the county when a ship came in to one of the ports requiring the attention of the sanitary inspector. Such a system would not work in seaside places like Dunoon which has as many as 40,000 people per week during the summer time or Oban which has something like 25,000. A large part of the sanitary work done in Argyll is done in towns which are widely separated, and there is no reason whatever why the sanitary inspector should be a county official. Such a system is hound to impair the efficiency of the service. At present I understand there are cases in which a small burgh may find it convenient to link itself up with the county for this purpose, but why should we put all the burghs into this cast-iron system? Indeed I am not sure that I would not be in favour of having sufficient elasticity in this matter to provide for separate medical officers also. Oban requires a medical officer of its own. Ships come in there, and if a ship comes in carrying disease of some kind it will be very awkward if the county medical officer is a long distance away. But if the medical officer can be represented by a local sanitary inspector the difficulty will be met to a large extent. I think the Amendment is quite wise. It does not prevent the burghs from making the arrangements with the county which they are at present able to make, and I think we ought to leave them the liberty which they now use so well. To
do so will serve the purposes of the Bill and the interests of public health far better than the proposal in the Clause.

Mr. WILLIAM GRAHAM: I ought to say on behalf of my colleagues in this part of the Committee that it would be impossible for us to accept the Lord Advocate's suggestion that our Amendment should be abandoned on the understanding that the matter will be reconsidered before the Report stage. As a result of the system under which we are working now, it has been the practice that in the event of an adverse judgment there was no further opportunity for any Debate. Accordingly, I rise to put one or two simple points which have emerged from the discussion. Under the Clause, according to the Under-Secretary, no existing appointment of a sanitary inspector is disturbed, but when vacancies occur the duties are transferred to the county officer, or the county officer becomes the sanitary inspector for the smaller burghs within the county area. Thus you will have a county sanitary inspector who will also be the officer, not for one small burgh, but it may be for a number of small burghs within the new territory under the Bill. It is perfectly clear that the Government are altering the position as it is at present in this important branch of sanitary administration, because, according to the Under-Secretary, the new county sanitary inspector responsible for these burghs in his area is not to run about into each district himself. According to my hon. and gallant Friend that officer is to work through assistants.
Let the Committee observe the difference between the position of these assistants under the Bill as it will apply and under the existing sanitary inspector in that district. My hon. and gallant Friend quite rightly said that the sanitary inspector is protected as regards the tenure of his office, and it is of very great importance that in these duties he should be safeguarded against the pressure of interested people; but, unless I am quite wrong, the new assistant in that area, that is, within the small burgh, will not be in that position at all. He is a mere assistant in that district of a sanitary inspector for the county, who is no doubt responsible and enjoys security of tenure, but the assistant is the immediate man
on the spot who has actually to do the work, without having the same safeguard as his responsible officer.
Take it on the administrative side, and let me ask the Government a simple question. What are they going to gain administratively by this change? My hon. Friend says that assistants are to undertake the duties in these immediate localities, and you are not, therefore, going to save very much as regards your personnel if that is the state of affairs. Under the Government's own Bill they leave these sanitary duties to the small burghs, that is, to areas up to 20,000 population, and if you do that under this Bill, why not leave in the locality an effective man in charge who is protected as regards his tenure of office in the discharge of his often difficult duties, which sometimes run counter to local interests? That is a very much better proposition than the one which the Government have in mind, and in any case, in their own Clause, they themselves indicate that apparently they have perhaps numerous exceptional cases in mind, because a line in this Clause indicates that the Board may otherwise determine or may make some separate proposal Our case is, quite frankly, that the game is not worth the candle, from the Government's point of view, and they would do very much better, here and now, to agree to this Amendment and not leave us in the doubt of a succeeding Report stage and discussion, which, in fact, under the Guillotine, we may never receive.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I appreciate the difficulties of the Guillotine involved in my proposal, and we are, therefore, perfectly willing not to oppose the Amendment at this stage, on the understanding that there will be no breach of faith if we find ourselves then in the position once again of having to reinsert these words or to make some variations. If we are free to do what we like on the Report stage, I appreciate that it would be fairer for us not to oppose the Amendment now.

Mr. GRAHAM: So far as we are concerned, I would like to say at once that we are willing to have the Amendment inserted on that understanding.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Am I to understand that the Amendment is being accepted now?

The LORD ADVOCATE: On the footing that we shall be free to do what we like on Report.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will take info consideration that there is nothing that people in the district feel more than the question as to who is to be appointed. That is the sign of real power, and not to give them the control of the man who has to do the job is to give them the hone without the meat. You will incite the utmost indignation of the population if you deprive them of this legitimate power. After all, they are paying for the piper, and should be allowed to call the tune.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I assure my hon. and learned Friend that I am impressed by the importance of that point.

Mr. JOHNSTON: There was one statement which the Lord Advocate made with which I should not like him to assume that we were in agreement. He said there might be variations in this matter and that he might, as I understood it, make some suggestion of limit-in power to burghs with a certain population. I should like him to under stand that, so far as we are concerned, we are standing by the Amendment.

Mr. HARDIE: The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said two things to which I wish to refer. He spoke first about the defects of dual control. Tremendous defects can accrue from dual control. His other statement was with regard to the power of a local authority over a sanitary inspector. I can visualise the case of a small burgh with a house factor as Provost and the next in power interested in milk. Hon. Members can see that there was a combination that the sanitary inspector would have to fight if he came up against it in carrying out his duties. I have known a case where they tried to dismiss a sanitary inspector who had taken action against them, and he at once got into touch with the Board of Health, which brought the thing right down to a sense of justice. I have had the experience of assistants unable, through
economic fear, to make complaints where there was a chance of being bullied by a factor or a milkman.

Mr. WESTWOOD: If there is to be any reconsideration of this Amendment, trust that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will disabuse himself of the idea which he expressed that the officials of the county council will more effectively carry through the work of sanitation than the officials of the burghs. The experience which I have gained in connection with the county which I represent in this House proves conclusively, as the communications which I have had with the hon. and gallant Member himself show, that the sanitary inspectors in the burghs do their work far more efficiently than, in the county of Midlothian, they have ever attempted to do it. We have not had a single complaint from the burghs in connection with the work of the sanitary inspectors, but only recently, after four years' hard work, have we been able to get sanitary arrangements given effect to in the county. In the burghs, the work has been more effectively done by the sanitary inspectors than the sanitary inspectors already appointed by the county have ever attempted to do their work and I hope there will be no withdrawing from the position which, the Government have accepted.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I have not accepted it. I said we would not oppose the insertion of the Amendment.

Mr. WESTWOOD: All I am asking is that that lack of opposition shall continue until the Third Reading of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir R. HAMILTON: I beg to move, in page 29, to leave out from the word "then" in line 33 to the second word "the," in line 34.
It will be realised that this Amendment is moved in connection with a second Amendment in my name, in line 37, to leave out the word "shall." and to insert in its place the words:
may with the consent of the town council of such burgh.
The object of the Amendment is to leave freedom of choice to the burghs in the appointment of both the medical officer and the sanitary inspector. If the Clause were to stand as drafted, unless the Board otherwise agreed in any particular case,
the officer holding the post of county medical officer or sanitary inspector would, in the event of a vacancy occurring in such post in the burgh, be ipso facto appointed for the burgh. But we desire that this appointment may be made with the consent of the town council of the burgh, and that it should be left to the burgh to say if they desire that the medical officer of the county should be appointed medical officer of the burgh. An hon. Member just now referred to what appeared to be the constant suspicion of the Secretary of State for Scotland of the local authorities in managing their own affairs. Surely the burghs of Scotland can be left to say whether they desire that any particular officer should be appointed to hold one of these posts. To me, the proposition is a self-evident one; and unless the Government have some very strong reasons to the contrary, which are not apparent on the face of the Clause, I hope the Committee will support my Amendment.

Sir R. HORNE: While I took a very definite view in favour of the previous Amendment, I am afraid I cannot agree to this one. It would he an admirable thing if you could get the consent of the local authority to every appointment made, but, on the other hand, suppose the burgh objects and refuses its consent, what is to be the course of the subsequent proceedings? There is no means suggested in the Amendment by which the matter can be resolved, and the result would be that you would have a medical officer for the county, you would have the burgh refusing to accept him, and there would be no medical officer for the burgh. As it seems to me, from the point of view of ordinary, practical, reasonable common sense, you must have it either one way or the other. You must either have the burgh entitled to appoint its own medical officer or, if the medical officer of the county is to be the person suggested to the town when a vacancy occurs, you must have some way of solving the difficulty if the burgh objects. My hon. Friend suggests no way in which that difficulty or trouble is going to be resolved, but as practical men we have to come down to a method
by which it can be ensured that there is a medical officer in the burgh. Accordingly, while I have every sympathy with the view that it would be excellent to have the consent of the burgh to the appointment of the medical officer by a county, I do not see how practically it can le carried out; and, therefore, I should be inclined to oppose the Amendment.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: In reply to the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) it is obvious that where the consent was not given it would be in the power of the burgh to appoint its own medical officer. That is the obvious solution of the difficulty.

Sir R. HORNE: Then that Amendment ought to have been moved earlier.

Mr. BROWN: I cannot agree. I agree with it being moved here. Take the position of a seaside resort tike Rothesay, highly organised from a health point of view, and, with all respect to the county medical officer of health, much more efficiently manned than the county. Surely it is a most anomalous position for a large and important seaside place like that, with an efficient medical staff, highly organised from the health point of view, the very lifeblood of the health resort depending on the efficacy of its medical staff, to put that place under the control, in regard to appointment, of a county authority which is not by any means as well organised, from the health point of view, as the burgh. Surely the Amendment is a perfectly workable one. The small burghs who cannot appoint a medical officer will fall in with the views of the Government, but when they are highly organised, they should have the right to appoint their own officer.

Sir R. HORNE: On a point of Order. The Committee have already passed the point at which it states that the medical officer of the county council is to be the chosen person in the event of a vacancy. It is too late, therefore, to suggest that the burgh shall still have the appointment of the medical officer in its own hands, and the only result of the Amendment must be that there would be no medical officer for the burghs.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: We are now on the first of the two Amendments in the name
of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R Hamilton), and that comes before the words covering the appointment of the medical officer.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: If the Amendment be carried, and the words are omitted, the medical officer of health and the sanitary inspector of the county council will still be appointed for the small burghs.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Then would follow the subsequent Amendment of my hon. Friend—in line 37 to leave out the word "shall," and to insert instead thereof the words
may with the consent of the town council of such burgh.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne): The hon. Gentleman really argued these two Amendments together. If the one which he moved falls, the second cannot be moved.

Sir R. HAMILTON: I hope that I made that clear when I moved the Amendment.

Captain FANSHAWE: We have already agreed that the major health services shall be carried out by the county councils and shall not be allowed to be carried out by the town councils of the small burghs. I supported the Amendment with regard to sanitation, because we proposed to disqualify the small burgh from appointing an officer for a duty for which they are responsible. Here we are being asked to give the small burghs some say in the appointment of the medical officer, but it it unreasonable for them to have any say in that appointment when they are not responsible for the service.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman. If this Clause be carried out, the burgh will have no voice whatever. We say that the burgh council ought to be consulted. Surely if the work of the medical officer is such an important part of the whole community of the large burghs, the smaller burghs, many of which double their population in the summer time, should have some say in the appointment.

Captain FANSHAWE: The burghs will certainly have a say in the appointment of the medical officer of the county in accordance with their representation on the county council.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: But there are existing county medical officers, and they
will have had no share in their appointment. After all, the representatives of the town council who go on to the county council are of the same calibre as members who are elected for that body by the county area, but in many cases they have not voting powers. I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary can assure me that the representatives of the burgh on the new county authority will have the power to vote on the appointment of a medical officer.

Major ELLIOT: Certainty; it is one of the functions which the new authority will exercise within the burgh, and they will have the right to vote for these men.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: It is a right and proper thing, too, but I can see trouble and friction being caused by this arbitrary appointment.

Sir R. HORNE: It will be worse if you refuse it.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: Not at all, because there is always the reference to a higher authority. I think that it will tend to a better state of affairs if the town council were given the power inside this Clause of some consultation with the county authority. After all, many of these burghs have got medical officers, some of them whole-time men, who are of superior calibre to some of the men who are appointed for the counties. They have to deal with a closer and denser population, and they have problems which never have to be faced by the county officer. In many ways they have to deal with different, problems. I hope therefore that some amelioration of this Clause will be made.

Mr. W. M. WATSON: I agree that the tendency of recent years in the smaller burgh has been to appoint the medical officer for the county as their medical officer; that tendency has been much more evident in the small burghs than in the larger burghs. The burghs of over 30,000 population have a right to a more substantial say in the appointment of the medical officer for those burghs. An interesting point has been raised in regard to the representation on the county council. Neither the Lord Advocate nor the Under-Secretary of State can deny that some burghs will only have indirect representation on the county council. In the scheme that, has been
prepared there is a grouping of burghs, and a group is entitled to only one representative on the county council. In some areas the county council are proposing that that system shall be extended, for the grouping of the burghs has not gone far enough to please them, and the burgh representation on the county council has to be cut down to satisfy the landward members and to give them a greater say than the burgh representatives—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I do not think that the hon. Member can go into the whole question of representation of the burghs on the county council on this Amendment. It is in order to show how far the burgh representatives will in fact have some vote in the choice of the medical officer, but further than that we cannot go.

Mr. WATSON: I was trying to show that by this system of grouping burghs they will only have a direct say on the county council as to who shall be the medical officer. That is an important point, for it means that these burghs will have a medical officer imposed upon them without their having any direct say whether the officer is suitable or not. The Amendment is only reasonable in asking that the town councils of these burghs shall have a say in the appointment of the medical officer.

Major ELLIOT: I take it that the hon. Member who has just spoken was expressing an individual view, and was not speaking as the spokesman of his party, because I gather that the official view of the party, as expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Dr. Shiels), is that the official Opposition approve of the proposal that the appointment of medical officers for the small burghs should fall to the medical officer for the county as vacancies arise. I want to deal with the extraordinary contention of the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. W. M. Watson), that the burgh would only have an indirect voice in the appointment of the medical officer under this Clause. The people who go to the county council are exactly the same people as those who would choose the medical officer—

Mr. WATSON: Is it not a fact that under the scheme which is drafted in the White Paper burghs are grouped, and that only one representative from a group is sent to the county council? How can a burgh which has practically no representation on the county council have a say in the matter?

Major ELLIOT: The Chairman has ruled out of order any lengthy discussion on representation, but I would point out that the groups are of the smallest kind, and they will send considerable representation to the new authority. The mass of Members opposite and the mass of Members on this side are agreed that the appointment should follow the course laid down in the Clause. It is following out the practice of tradition and the development of public health work in Scotland. In over 100 cases it has been done. The case for the medical officer is much stronger than the case with regard to the sanitary inspector. It is the case of a man who has to deal with the major functions of health which are being transferred to a considerable extent to the new reconstituted county authority, and it would be an unworkable and retrograde step to accept the Amendment. It is not a line of policy which is carried out by small burghs now, for the system proposed in the Clause has been carried out by 100 out of 179 burghs affected.

6.0 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I must say that I was very much amused by the exordium of the hon. and gallant Member. He has rallied the Opposition regarding this Amendment, and demanded to know what is their official party view on this question. When we were discussing the sanitary officers he was assuring the Committee that it was not a party question. I do not like to suggest that the support given to the Amendment about the sanitary inspector from the benches behind him may have had something to do with the attitude he takes up on whether this should or should not be a party question, but on the merits I cannot understand why the appointment of a sanitary officer should be a suitable occasion for a non-party discussion and the appointment of a medical officer not.

Major ELLIOT: I hope the hon. and gallant Member will realise that I was referring not so much to the party view
as to the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Dr. Shiels). I was taking his opinion as one medical man to another, and as the opinion of a man who carries a great deal of weight with myself, and must also carry weight with the whole House, in matters of health.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: The hon. and gallant Member now says that he takes the opinion of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh as one which carries great weight with himself. I say that I shall call the OFFICIAL REPORT in evidence, and that when he opens the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will find these words:
The official party view of people opposite.
I took them down the moment he spoke them. But, passing from that matter, I must say that I cannot understand this inveterate distrust of town councils among hon. Members opposite. [Interruption.] I see the Lord Advocate objects, but I repeat it—the inveterate distrust which hon. Members opposite are showing, on every occasion, towards the elected representatives of the burghs of Scotland.

Sir R. HORNE: Rubbish!

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Have you ever been a county councillor? I have. If you had been a town councillor you would not have so much enthusiasm. [Interruption.]

Sir A. SINCLAIR: All I can gather from the hon. and learned Gentleman is that he shares the distrust to which I have alluded; but that does not influence my view. I know three burghs intimately, and they are admirably managed. The people in Scotland, speaking generally, take a pride in the burghs in Scotland, and in the unpaid and voluntary services, unrewarded except by the gratitude of the electors, which the members of the councils give to those burghs. On this occasion there is less ground than on almost any other for this distrust, because, as the hon. and gallant Member himself has said, over 100 burghs in Scotland have already taken this step. That enormously fortifies the argument for this Amendment, because it shows that, where it is clear the public interest will be served, in 100 cases out of 179 the burghs have already taken this step. Where, then, is the evidence of obstruction and reactionary feeling? The
burghs have shown that where they believe it would be an advantage to the public services they have been perfectly willing to take this step, and if it were allowed to be done voluntarily the same step would be taken in other cases. If we make it compulsory the step, when it is taken, will be taken with reluctance, with bad feeling, and with controversy on both sides. The medical officer will enter upon his duties with ill-feeling on the part of the burgh against the appointment, whereas if it had been a voluntary appointment he would have been met with good will.
Next I would refer to the case of holiday resorts like St. Andrews on the East Coast, or Dunoon on the West Coast, small burghs into which there come vast irruptions of holiday makers at certain times of the year. Though they are small burghs, they have in this respect a great responsibility, and they keep a large and expert staff to deal with the medical problems which may arise. In some cases it is a larger and more expert staff than the counties themselves maintain, and surely it is absurd that compulsion should be exercised upon them. If there is a necessity for them to appoint the county medical officer as their medical officer, surely the only sensible course to take would be to bring the parties round a table to discuss the subject and carry them with you in the course proposed. The hon. and gallant Member said there was only one point in the speech of the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. McLean Watson)—a very interesting speech, I thought it was—which was worth replying to, and even that point he said contemptuously, at the end of his speech, was hardly worth dwelling on. The reason he left it so hurriedly was that he found it more pointed than he realised when he started. He said that the people who would vote on the question of the appointment in the county council would be the same people as would have voted in the burgh. Yes, but if they vote in the burgh they have the deciding say, whereas if they vote on the county council they may be outvoted by all the other members of the council. That is the difference. I hope that as the hon. and gallant Member was obviously under some misapprehension when he last replied that he will reconsider the Amendment, and, if possible, accept it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I must say that I wish the voluntary principle had been retained. I think it would have been sounder. The compulsory system may be all very well, but it does not suit all parties. In the county of Argyll we have Dunoon and also Oban and there is also Rothesay. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rothesay in Argyllshire?"] It is only just across the water. Those places have big health services, and very efficient ones too. Oban has so efficient a health service that it takes all the infectious disease cases from the whole county of Argyll. As I said in connection with the question of sanitary inspectors it would be very awkward if a large number of cases of infectious disease came in from a ship, or occurred suddenly in other circumstances, and the medical officer of health were away in some remote part of the county. These places have an enormous population in the summer time. The figures for Dunoon are astonishing—it has 40,000 visitors per week, and 25,000 per week go to Oban. There is a summer population of about 500,000 in Dunoon during the season, and of 250,000 in Oban. The present health services are under the control of local medical officers of health, and I am not sure that it is not a full-time job for them. They might be in a difficult position if their energies were scattered all over the county.
On the other hand there is the point made by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Dr. Shiels) that there is a tendency to spread medical services over a wider area, for the simple reason that infectious diseases do not respect municipal boundaries. That is, perhaps, a sounder view to take, but I would like to hear the hon. Member for East Edinburgh on that point again. He ought to give us his views. I think it would have been a better arrangement if we had retained the voluntary principle and allowed for an adjustment to be made between the two bodies. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) talked about the Lord Advocate being suspicious of town councils. He himself seemed to have a suspicion of county councils. I have only a modest amount of enthusiasm for either town councillors or county councillors or, for that matter, for Members of Parliament, but I do not think it is quite right that we should set one body of councillors against another
body of councillors, because I think they are all bound up together in the spirit of doing their best for the country.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: The hon. and learned Member is misrepresenting me. I never mentioned county councillors. I entirely deny that I was trying to set town councillors against county councillors. All I was urging was what the hon. and learned Member himself is urging that the appointment of the county medical officer of health to be medical officer of health also for these burghs should be left to be a matter of agreement.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: The impression left upon my mind, which is still one of normal intelligence, was the attack the hon. and gallant Member made on the Lord Advocate for being down on the town councils, for having a deep suspicion of them. The only inference was that if we are going to take things away from the town council he had an equal objection to them being given to the county council. If the county of Argyll had been divided into departments, Dunoon and Corval, Oban and Lorne, Campbeltown and Kintyre, it would have been a much more rational division than massing such scattered places together under one system.

Dr. SHIELS: I regret that I cannot support this Amendment, as I sympathise a good deal with the enthusiasm and the spirit which were expressed by those who spoke in support of it. In view, however, of what we have already agreed to do, I think the Amendment is not practicable It would not work. If a medical officer is appointed for a county, and individual burghs are to have a right to refuse his services and to make another appointment, the very greatest difficulties would arise. The burghs which objected might not be the most suitable ones to have a medical officer of their own. One sees with regret the passing of the medical officer of health of the smaller burghs, because he has been a local figure of great importance and interest. In many cases he has been a man who has done magnificent work, but we must face the fact that, with the advance of medical science, in order to deal properly with public health matters we must have such laboratory and scientific equipment as the small unit is really unable to furnish. In
the interests of the people themselves in the smaller burghs it is important that they should have available the very latest resources of science in medicine and the full equipment associated with these. At the same time, I agree with the arguments brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) in reference to places like Rothesay, Oban, St. Andrews and Dunoon which, especially in the summer time, have a large population, are well equipped, and ought to have their own medical officers of health. I think it will be found that the department of the Board of Health in Scotland has always in medical matters, been up-to-date and progressive. They will not, I am sure, be averse to taking advantage of the reservation in the Clause allowing for a burgh medical officer of health in the case of a burgh where it is appropriate that it should have a medical officer of its own. I therefore cannot support the Amendment.

Mr. E. BROWN: Surely the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Dr. Shiels) is wrong when he talks about the higher range of services which seem to be concentrated in the great cities. This is not a matter of the large burghs as against the counties and the small burghs. There can be no comparison between the efficiency of the one as compared with the other. I think this is a wise Amendment, and I hope it will be pressed to a Division.

Major ELLIOT: The Department will take advantage of the reservation put in

to safeguard positions such as those which have been brought to our notice from time to time. We have done our best in other portions of the Bill to safeguard those cases by Amendments which provide for delegating the control of medical services to the smaller local authorities. We shall take advantage of the provision which has been inserted in the Bill to deal with exceptional cases like those which occur in seaside resorts. We have been asked to leave the whole matter for negotiation. The Government have been challenged to produce a single example of obstruction or reaction in the case of a small authority appointing un unsuitable man. I will give one case of this kind. A certain local authority in 1919 appointed a medical officer of health who did not possess the necessary statutory qualifications. The local authority were reminded of the requirements. The Board pointed out that the statutory requirements were imperative, and the process of negotiation began. For how long did those negotiations go on? They went on till 1922; they went on further till 1028. The Government do not desire that the time of public departments should be taken up discussing negotiations of this kind. If this Amendment is pressed to a Division, I hope the Mover of it will not find that many hon. Members will follow him into the Lobby.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out to the word 'Board,' in line 34, stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 233; Noes, 43.

Division No. 207.]
AYES.
[6.20 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.
Cohen, Major J. Brunel


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Colfox, Major Wm. Philip


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Briggs, J. Harold
Connolly, M.


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Briscoe, Richard George
Cooper, A. Duff


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Cope, Major Sir William


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Couper, J. B.


Apsley, Lord
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Courtauld, Major J. S.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)


Atholl, Duchess of
Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks,Newb'y)
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)


Atkinson, C.
Buckingham, Sir H.
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Butt, Sir Alfred
Crookshank,Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Campbell, E. T.
Daikeith, Earl of


Balniel, Lord
Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Davies, Maj. Geo.F.(Somerset, Yeovil)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Cayzer,Maj.SIr Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Davies, Dr. Vernon


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish
Chamberlain, Rt.Hn.Sir J.A.(Birm.,W.)
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)


Berry, Sir George
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Day, Harry


Bethel, A.
Charieton, H. C
Dunnico, H.


Betterton, Henry B.
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Eden, Captain Anthony


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Christie, J. A.
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)


Blundell, F. N.
Clayton, G. C.
Elliot, Major Walter E.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Ellis, R. G.


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George
Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.)


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Salmon, Major I.


Everard, W. Lindsay
Locker-Lampson, Com.O. (Handsw'th)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Loder, J. de V.
Sandemen, N. Stewart


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Looker, Herbert William
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Lougher, Lewis
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Ford, Sir P. J.
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Sandon, Lord


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Savery, S. S.


Foster, Sir Harry S.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew,W)


Fraser, Captain Ian
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Fremantie, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
MacIntyre, Ian
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
McLean, Major A.
Skelton, A. N.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Macmillan, Captain H.
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Ganzoni, Sir John
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)


Gates, Percy
Macquisten, F. A.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Mac Robert, Alexander M.
Smithers, Waldron


Gower, Sir Robert
Maitand, Sir Arthur D. Steel
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Grant, Sir J. A.
Margesson, Captain D.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F


Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Hall, F, (York, W.R., Normanton)
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Hamilton, Sir George
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Harland, A.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Hartington, Marquess of
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Templeton, W. P.


Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd. Henley)
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Waddington, R.


Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Nelson, Sir Frank
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Herbert, S. (York, N.R.,Scar. & Wh'by)
Nuttall, Ellis
Warrender, Sir Victor


Hills, Major John Waller
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Hilton, Cecil
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Watts, Sir Thomas


Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S J. G.
Penny, Frederick George
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)
Perring, Sir William George
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Hopkins, J. W. W.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Wells, S. R.


Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Preston, William
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple.


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney,N.)
Price, Major C. W. M.
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Radford, E. A.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Raine, Sir Walter
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Rawson, Sir Cooper
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks, Richm'd)


Hurd, Percy A.
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Hurst, Gerald B.
Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Rentoul, G. S.
Womersley, W. J.


Iveagh, Countess of
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Kennedy, A. R. (Preston).
Ropner, Major L.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Ross, R. D.



Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Lamb, J. Q.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Captain


Lee, F.
Rye, F. G.
 Bowyer.


NOES.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hirst, G. H.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hollins, A.
Snell, Harry


Buchanan, G.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Sullivan, Joseph


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Sutton, J. E.


Compton, Joseph
Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Thurtie, Ernest


Cove, W. G.
Lindley, F. W.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Livingstone, A. M.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Lowth, T.
Welsh, J. C.


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Lunn, William
Whiteley, W.


Gillett, George M.
Maxton, James
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Griffith, F. Kingsley
Potts, John S.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Purcell, A. A.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Groves, T.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)



Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Scrymgeour, E.
Major-General Sir Robert Hutchison


Harris, Percy A.
Shinwell, E.
and Major Owen.


Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Amendment made:

In page 29, line 34, leave out the word "Board," and insert instead thereof the words "Department of Health."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Mr. JOHNSTON: I beg to move, in page 29, line 35, to leave out the words: "or the sanitary inspector, as the case may be."
This is consequential upon the earlier Amendment, which was not opposed by
the Government, and which was agreed to by the Committee.

Amendment agreed to. Further Amendments made:

In page 29, line 40, leave out the word "salaries," and insert instead thereof the word "salary."

In line 40, leave out the words "officers and the assistants of such officers," and insert instead thereof the word "officer."—[Mr. Johnston.]

In line 43, leave out the word "Board," and insert instead thereof the word "Department."—[The Lord Advocate.]

CLAUSE 27.—(Repeal of 5 Edw. 7. c. 18.)

Mr. E. BROWN: I beg to move, in page 30, line 2, after the word "repealed," to insert the words:
as from the date on which the Minister of Labour shall certify that the number of unemployed insured persons resident in Scotland is not greater than one per cent, of the estimated resident population.
The effect of this Amendment would be to retain in being such powers as are applied to Scotland under the Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905. It is true that not a great deal has been done by that Act, but the view of certain of my hon. Friends is that, while there are so many people in the country unemployed, the House of Commons ought not to part with any piece of machinery, however small, which might be used for providing employment for unemployed men in Scotland. There have been a number of discussions in the House on this problem, and, when we consider that in a burgh like Leith, a fortnight ago, there were 5,090 unemployed out of a total of 25,000 insured persons, that there are now 4,800 unemployed, and that for the last seven years the unemployment figure has rarely been below 4,000, those who sit for distressed areas like that cannot view with equanimity the removal of any machinery which might be put in operation to provide work for unemployed men, especially when we realise how little has been done in recent years to work other machinery. It is possible, under the Act in ques-
tion, to set up machinery, and I desire that the powers which exist for that purpose should be retained.

Major ELLIOT: I really do not expect that the hon. Member will press this Amendment. It certainly proposes the retention of a piece of machinery, but it is, surely, only blinding ourselves to the gravity and size of the problem to retain a piece of machinery which is not and has not been for many years in operation—[Interruption]—at any rate not to any great extent. It is true that it is possible to set up committees under the Act. There are at present nine such committees, and of these only three, in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, have done any work at all for several years. The Aberdeen Committee was recently only acting as an agency for the Glasgow Distress Committee in connection with the sale of their products, such as firewood. The Aberdeen and Edinburgh Distress Committees employ practically no men beyond about 30 in connection with road work, and the Palacerigg colony in Glasgow has practically closed down. There is really no point in retaining a piece of machinery which is not functioning along the lines of the present legislation regarding unemployment, and it would not be possible for us to accept this Amendment.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I ask the Committee to accept this Amendment. I am surprised, if I may say so without offence, at the lack of knowledge of the position shown by the Under-Secretary of State, who on so many questions is usually well informed. It is true that in Edinburgh and Aberdeen the Distress Committees set up under the 1905 Act have not operated to any extent in employing unemployed persons, but there is no reason why they should not operate much more fully than they do at present. In both places there is distress enough to warrant the setting up of such a body, and the taking by that body of active and interested steps to minimise the trouble. In the City of Glasgow, the Under-Secretary is not facing the position at all. In Glasgow the distress committee includes, not only members of the corporation, but outside persons co-opted for the purpose. If my memory serves me, it includes representatives of the
Trades Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and certain local authorities, like the parish council, who, for the purposes of this Act, meet and deal with the problem of distress. If the distress committee in Glasgow is not functioning as many of us would desire, it is not because the 1905 Act is in itself bad, nor is it because the distress committee are not capable of dong the work. The distress committee in Glasgow for many years carried on valuable work at Palacerigg. Some people may say that the number of men employed there was not very large. Sometimes it was as low as 60, and sometimes as many as 500. At any rate, between those limits, a number of men were employed. Even if only 100 or 150 were given employment, to those 100 or 150 the matter was terribly important.
It was also important from another point of view, owing to the Under-Secretary's policy. The parish council of Govan, for instance, would very often say to a man, "You are not genuinely seeking work." The Employment Exchange also would say that he was not genuinely seeking work, and now the Department of Health comes along and says that he is not genuinely seeking work. The only test that could be applied in those circumstances was to give the man work; the test of where he was looking for it was often fictitious. The parish council, therefore, in order to apply the test, would say, "We have our colony, and we will give to the distress committee the amount of parish relief that we would otherwise have paid," and would give to the distress committee the full amount of parish relief that a man with his wife and three children would receive, namely 29s. per week, for doing nothing, and would apply this test, which is the only real and effective test in regard to work. One of the great advantages of the distress committee was that in their colony a man could be offered work, while the parish council handed over the 29s. to the distress committee so that they might test the man's bonâ fides. It is not that the 1905 Act has failed. What has happened has been that, in the series of economies applied to everyone except Southern Irish loyalists all debts of honour have been wiped out except in the case of a certain
few in Ireland, and the Government have refused to give any assistance in the operation of the Act.
One of the members of the town council in the Division that I represent was for many years Chairman of the Burgh Distress Committee, and he gave it as his opinion that, apart from the question of employing men in the distress committee's colony at Palacerigg, this was a valuable social experiment, with advantages far outwith those of the colony itself. Some of us here have served on the Glasgow Corporation, and I think it was the unanimous view of the members of the Glasgow Corporation that that experiment, while it lasted, never did anyone any harm, that its cost to the nation was comparatively small, and that it did do something to try to mitigate the worst hardships of the unemployment problem in our midst. It is an unfortunate fact—I blame no one for it—that in the House of Commons, when we are dealing with unemployment, we constantly confine our attention to the problem of the unemployed man. The reason why we do that is that we are human, and the man to a large extent is responsible for bringing in the wages on which the women and children depend. But there is also the problem of the unemployed woman, which is equally acute, and, possibly, from the point of view of the morality of the nation, even more important.
The distress committees in Glasgow attempted, it is true in a small way, to tackle that problem apart from the Employment Exchanges. A large number of women, for many reasons, are not insurable, and the distress committee, in their own small way, set up in Watson Street, in the centre of the city, a very valuable organisation, and advertised in the Glasgow Press that women of reliable character were available, not for the purpose of giving actual assistance in cases of child-birth, but for the purpose of doing necessary house-work and so on in such cases. That organisation was a very valuable connecting link between Mrs. A or Mrs. B, who were looking for a job, and Mrs. C, who was desirous of employing them. The Glasgow Corporation were allowed to levy a rate for that work, but they needed in addition some form of Government assistance. The Government always say that work is preferable to relief. Here was a scheme
for making work preferable to relief. I put a series of questions to the Government, asking that some help might be given in this case, but the only reply that I got was that the Government at this stage could not afford to give anything at all. I believe that the cost of a Government grant would have amounted to less than £10,000. Here we had land that needed reclaiming, and at the same time idle men, with the distress committee as the connecting link between the idle land and the idle men, and only needing a little Government assistance, which we were told could not be given to them. Now we have the next step, namely, the abolition of this work and the scrapping of the committees. What about the debt of honour of 1905?
The Under-Secretary may say that the Employment Exchanges do that work, and I admit frankly that in most places the Exchanges do do the work. What is wrong with this auxiliary aid? It is not a question of bureaucracy being run at great cost. I have visited Palacerigg Labour Colony once or twice. I know it has been stated that the men were underpaid—and I would have liked to have seen higher wages—and that they were not always housed in the best possible way, but every man preferred even the receipt of a small wage and a fairly satisfactory condition of housing to parish relief. This is the work which the distress committee accomplished. The only case against the project is that it is small. I admit that. If I thought that the Government were going to introduce some scheme that would deal with tens of thousands instead of hundreds, I would modify my opposition to the proposal in this Bill. While there is such terrible poverty in Glasgow and there is this body doing valuable work, I think it would be wrong for this Committee to do anything which would lead to the scrapping of such a useful social experiment carried out by an earnest body of people. To scrap it would be sheer madness and very wrong. I hope that the Committee will divide against the Government proposal. I wish the Under-Secretary would review what he has said and withdraw his opposition and allow the distress committees, meagre as they may be, to operate to the best of their ability.

Mr SCRYMGEOUR: I wish to express my concurrence with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). There is no doubt that for many years very little has been done, and in some cities nothing at all, through the agency of these distress committees, but those of us who have had experience of their working are able to testify that, when they carried out their operations, they did, in some degree, alleviate the distress which was prevalent. My hon. Friend has emphasised what everyone must feel very deeply, that it is not because of the absence of distress in our great constituencies that the distress committees have not done a great deal. I do not say that the constituency, the representation of which I have the honour of sharing, is in the category of the worst cases. Nevertheless, the depression there is exceedingly widespread. There is a feeling of disappointment that the Government are not taking steps seriously to relieve the hardships which are prevalent among so many of our people. One is in a difficulty from the individual standpoint of saying exactly all one feels on this matter, but I am entirely at a loss to know what to do in regard to the many who make application to me.
The outlook is so black for many of these people. Their situation is so poignant that it causes one great sorrow, especially because of the inability of a Government, who talk so freely about the necessity of sustaining a Navy and an Army for home defence, to do anyhing really effective. A large number of our people in the great constituencies are without any home defence at all in this wealthy country. Here are the Government, in this Clause of this Bill dealing with the local government of Scotland, indicating their utter failure and inability to meet the situation. The representative of the Government has asserted that there is really nothing doing on The part of these distress committees, and that therefore they desire to wipe out the system. This is an example of the ignominious plight into which the Government, have fallen, and this is especially noticeable after last night's development, when the Government climbed down after powerful elements had assailed them concerning the compensation claims of Irish loyalists, which, to some extent, I am told, were largely concocted. Here are
genuine claims on the part of unfortunate people who are in a state of real desperation.

Mr. JAMES STEWART: I want to take part in this Debate as one who claims to know something about the work that is being done in Glasgow. As a member of the parish council when the Act of 1905 was passed, I can remember the beginning of the agitation which led to the passing of that Act when unemployment was rife. Through the efforts of the late Mr. Joseph Fels, an American citizen, a Labour colony was established at Hollesley Bay as an experiment in order to show that, given an opportunity, the unemployed could provide a living for themselves. The experiment worked in such a way that the Conservative Government at that time passed the Act to which I have referred, giving power in Scotland, as in England, to establish Labour colonies. When the Palacerigg colony was started, we were told that we had bought a piece of ground that would not produce foodstuffs, that it was peat and mossland. So-called agricultural experts said that we should be unable to produce foodstuffs there, but we did so. We transformed that piece of moss and peat land into land on which we were able to grow foodstuffs above the average of the foodstuffs grown on land in other parts and on better situated land in Scotland. We placed there men who were unemployed and required assistance. We built them up physically and in other respects. We transformed them, in many cases, from derelicts into men. We took their wives and children and made them a weekly allowance and kept control of them in order to insure that the money was properly spent. This was the result of the work of the distress committee in the city of Glasgow, and the same sort of thing occurred in Edinburgh. If any hon. Members speak to-night and give the history of the distress committee in Edinburgh they will repeat in every detail the story which I am trying to tell about Glasgow. This cost the city a little money. We were entitled to make a rate for a small amount. I think it was a halfpenny in the £. We would have fixed a higher rate if we had been given the power to do so. The State
came in and aided in the experiment. It is true that it did not pay for itself —under the conditions that was impossible—but we made the unemployed physically fit, and, self-respect and self-esteem returning to them, we transformed them into capable citizens.
By this local Government Bill, which, we were told, was to give more power than ever to local authorities, the Government are going to take away the power that has already been given in this connection. The Government are going to make it impossible to carry on this experiment which has been such a success and which would have been even more successful if it had been given greater opportunities. The Government are going to rob us of this machinery and leave us without anything at all. We have been told that a certain section of the unemployed do not want work and that what they want is the dole. We know that Members on the opposite side of the Committee feel more detestation with regard to the dole than we do on this side, but we have never claimed the dole. We desire the opportunity to work. In this little experiment, we had an opportunity of giving men work and I claim that it was a success. I would plead with Members on the other side who have the power to do so to use their influence to retain this bit of useful work, so that at some future time we may expand it and find men work instead of giving them the dole. The unemployed, I assert, want work. They do not want charity or Government doles.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. STEPHEN: I wish to join in the complaint with regard to the taking away of this machinery. I do not think that the Under-Secretary of State really made out a case for the taking away of this machinery. I understand that Government regard the circumstances to-day as being very different from the circumstances in 1905 and that this part of machinery for dealing with the unemployed has become comparatively useless and that therefore they desire to repeal it. I would have more faith in the repeal of this part of the machinery if the Government were really putting something material in its place. No suggestion whatever has been made that the Government desire to put anything in the place of this machinery. It is true, as has been pointed out by my two
hon. Friends from Glasgow, that a certain amount of good work has been done in the past under the Act of 1905. There was a certain amount of work carried on and a number of people were helped by this legislation. The Under-Secretary says that they were not very many and that the Act has fallen into desuetude.
The position in Glasgow in regard to this Act was that the Government afterwards did not give the necessary grant to enable the local authority to make full use of the Act. If the Government had been willing to pay more money to the local authority in order to encourage the distress committee to put schemes into operation, then very much more could have been done. In Glasgow, when they were faced with the Government's refusal to make any contribution in order to make the Act effective, the Glasgow Corporation felt that the machinery under this Act was so important that they spent many hundreds of pounds out of the common fund to keep it going. Again and again Glasgow was generous enough to provide the money. Who can say, if Glasgow Corporation had had the central Government behind it in making adequate financial provision, how much more might not have been done under this Act? That is one of the reasons why we object to this legislation being repealed.
After all, this Government may not last for ever. After yesterday one feels more and more how shaky it is. It is evidently becoming as unpopular with its supporters on the back benches as it is in the country with the public as a whole. If we had another Government in office and a Secretary of State for Scotland with vision, and energy, then until that Government could put more adequate schemes upon the Statute Book, such a Secretary of State might see his way to make grants to the local authorities in the necessitous areas which would allow them to do something under this Act for their unemployed. It does not lie with the Under-Secretary to say that very little has been done and that these distress committees are practically non-existent. The reason is that the central authority have starved the local authorities for grants to carry on, and has not done its duty in providing the money. Now the central authority turns round and says that the local authorities have no need
for this and that there is other machinery, like unemployment insurance, which has made it obsolete. If it be true that we have got unemployment insurance and various other provision for the unemployed, the fact remains that there are many unemployed who are not receiving benefit and who are not getting work under any scheme. If the Government, instead of handing out this money to brewers and other successful businesses, made some financial provision for the districts and asked them to put this machinery into operation in order to help these people, it would be a much more useful step than scrapping this machinery altogether.
The Under-Secretary has put forward no argument in favour of this Clause, except that this machinery is not being used except on a very limited scale. That is not a good argument for scrapping it altogether. Let him give us some other scheme to provide for these poor people and then we will agree, but nothing has been provided and the poor are being left to their misery while the local authorities are not going to have the chance of doing something through this machinery. There is no case whatever for this Clause. This Government seems to be afraid lest a generous local authority and a Government with a real sense of the needs of the unemployed should make use of this and incur expenditure which would afterwards result in increased rates or taxation and they are therefore putting a bar in the way of their successors using this Act. I appeal to the Government to allow this machinery to remain and to delete this Clause from the Bill. If it is not doing any good, it is not doing any harm on the Statute Book. Let us not have to come to the House of Commons under another Government to pass similar legislation. Let us leave it on the Statute Book so that it can be used in the future to help these poor people.

Mr. HARDIE: If we had some guarantee that there would be a continuous reduction in unemployment, one could understand this Clause abolishing the 1905 Act. Since the reverse is the case, I cannot conceive why any machinery dealing with unemployment should be scrapped. Reference has been made to the Palacerigg scheme and statements have been made from the Government benches as to its uselessness. How can
it be described as useless? No matter what Acts of Parliament you pass, you cannot detract from the value of the experiment by which we were able to prove that bogland can be made to grow corn. By doing that we achieved something worth any amount of money. If any Government had been desirous of developing that research especially for application to the upper lands of Scotland, where the cry has always been that you cannot grow corn, the gain would have been enormous. On the Rob Roy estate the bog is characteristic of all the kinds of bog in Scotland. When the Committee first visited this place after the 1905 Act came into operation, the same statements were made as to the impossibility of its success.
That experiment showed the power of man and science applied to a bog, but there was something more than the material effect. The unemployed man when he reached Palacerigg was there in a school. It was a new kind of research work in which he was to be personally engaged. The moment you interest an individual, education is always possible. When this was started in Palacerigg, it was looked upon as hopeless by many men who were held to have great knowledge of agriculture. Since the day it was a success every Government in power has tried to hide the report and the results of Palacerigg, though we on these benches and outside the House have been asking them to apply it to other lands in Scotland. If that had been done during all these years, unemployed men would have been reclaiming acre after acre of land in Scotland. We are therefore scrapping more than the Act itself.
We are told that there is an Unemployment Insurance Act, but I hope the House does not think that an unemployed man is satisfied because he is insured when he is out of work. The man with a wife and family has nothing but hate in his mind towards going to the Exchange and having to stand in a queue. Schemes like Palacerigg do give a man an interest in the work provided for him. It was not useless labour or a test task. It was a real experiment, a real question of research as to what could be done with certain kinds of land. The value of this experiment is a good ground for the retention of this Act. I know of nothing that ever paid so well as that experi-
ment. Of course, if you take the balance sheet and look at the pounds, shillings and pence, it does not pay in that sense, but it demonstrated something worth millions to this country when they apply the facts of that experiment on bog land.
Did it pay? Of course it did. It may not have paid a big dividend, and a number of expensive directors, but it paid in this way, that it became a colony not of men degraded by a system of doles but of men directly interested and concerned in the work which they were doing. They were kept from becoming demoralised. Every man engaged in this work, no matter what had been his previous trade or occupation, was keenly interested in it and felt that he must do all he could to become as efficient as possible. And they were able to see the results of their labour. The Government now propose to destroy the power of embarking on such schemes as this. We are not going to get rid of our unemployment problem very easily or very quickly, and I think that we shall be faced with the problem of cultivating every yard of land in these islands in order to provide for the people. This experiment proves that bog land can be cultivated. Every yard of land in the country should be cultivated in the interests of the unemployed. The Government are proposing to wipe out this Act altogether, and take away powers from local people, who have the knowledge of local needs and circumstances, and operate the whole proceedings from Whitehall. I want to see this experiment extended and developed by the people in the localities in order that this land of ours shall be much better cultivated than it is at the present time.

Mr. SULLIVAN: I am astonished that any representative from Scotland should support the proposal in this Clause. In our industrial areas hundreds of pounds are being paid out every week upon which we get no return, and our people are gradually degenerating. Under the Act of 1925, in certain conditions, work of this kind can be put in force. I do not share some of the opinions which have been expressed in regard to the reclamation of bog-land. I hope hon. Members of the Labour party will make up their minds that when we experiment on the land in this country it will not always be on the worst land, not always on the bog-land that we shall spend the nation's
money while other people are enjoying the fruits of land which ought to be worked. We have plenty of bog and moorland in the county of Lanark. In the north-eastern portion of the county it lies for miles and on the fringes we have a population of idle people. What happened. Some men from Holland came across and drained that land. They were able to make a good thing in selling moss litter and turf. Foreigners can make more of our soil than we can ourselves because we have been divorced from the soil for so long. We have not the knowledge. I do not think the Act of 1925
should be repealed. It gives certain powers. It is true that they have not been utilised to the full, but there was no one to compel local authorities to put this provision into operation. I would much rather pay a man £5 a week for any work than pay him 30s. for being idle. In the one case the man is degenerating, but in the other you are getting some return for your money and at the same time keeping the man fit so that it is possible for him to take suitable work when the opportunity occurs. I hope hon. Members from Scotland will follow the example of some hon. Members last night in insisting on the Government doing something in this matter, and in doing so justify their position as representatives of Scotland.

Sir R. HORNE: I have great sympathy with what has been said by the hon. Member who has just sat down, that it is much more important to give people remuneration for work done than to give them anything in the shape of a dole. Quite obviously it maintains the self-respect of a man, which charity never can do, and while people have been compelled to accept charity I am sure we should all regard it as more agreeable to our national pride if work could be given instead of charity. I came into contact with the Act of 1925 when I was Minister of Labour and my recollection of the working of that Measure is that in many parts of Scotland it did work very effectively, but gradually its effect died off. I remember the case of Edinburgh, I think of Dundee, and also Aberdeen, but Glasgow more than any other place continued its operation until a comparatively late period. I can recall now an application made to myself with regard to the acquisition of certain land about 30
miles from Glasgow, which it was thought could be developed by the Glasgow Distress Committee, and which would also find employment for many of the unemployed I am not sure that some hon. Members opposite have not exaggerated the effect of this particular Statute. It is true that it stimulated activity, but I am not sure that it provided any effective assistance. For example, on one occasion a Government grant was given, but I do not think any Government grants are available now for the purposes of this Act, and, therefore, there is nothing to assist its operation. On the other hand, there was the power given to the town council to levy a rate for administrative purposes. My recollection of the matter in Glasgow is that there was some difficulty in getting the rate voted for this particular purpose. I may be wrong.

Mr. BUCHANAN: As a matter of fact, the money in the Common Good Fund was diverted from this particular purpose to certain enterprises which were not making a profit and the Common Good Fund could not stand the strain.

Sir A. HORNE: I was coming to that. It was financed in Glasgow out of the Common Good Fund. My recollection is that something was owing to the Common Good Fund, and that everything has now rather fallen into abeyance. It is far better to have a more effective instrument than the one we have at the present time. I sympathise with the Government in thinking that not very much is going to be obtained by keeping this Act in operation, because it is not functioning at the present time to any appreciable extent. While I agree with the general sentiments expressed by hon. Members opposite and the principle enunciated, I think too much importance is being given to this particular Act because it has failed, and for other means of obtaining employment for our unemployed we must look to some far more effective instrument than this Act. For that reason I cannot support the Amendment and vote against, the Government.

Mr. W. ADAMSON: I am surprised that there has been no reply either from the Under-Secretary or the Lord Advocate to the arguments which have been put forward in support of the Amendment. I expected that we should have
had a reply from the Government before half-past seven o'clock, but evidently they have made up their minds that they are going to oppose the Amendment. It means that the one little bit of practical legislation which stands to the credit of the Tory party, so far as providing useful work for the unemployed is concerned, is to be sacrified. I want to warn the Under-Secretary of the danger of that policy. This Act should remain on the Statute Book. The only reason why it has practically fallen into disuse is because local authorities have not been provided by the Government with a sufficient amount of money to enable them to work it. Not only that, but they have denied local authorities the power to raise

rates locally; they have limited them to a rate of one halfpenny in the £. It is not possible for any local authority to enter into the development of these schemes on a rate of one halfpenny in the £. We cannot afford to scrap a single particle of legislation which enables us to deal in any way with the unemployed problem. It is of such a character that we should retain every bit of legislation which enables us to deal with it, and, therefore, I hope the Government will accept the Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided; Ayes, 130; Noes, 209.

Division No. 208.]
AYES.
[7.30 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Shinwell, E.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hardie, George D.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Ammon, Charles George
Harris, Percy A.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Hayes, John Henry
Sitch, Charles H.


Barnes, A.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barr, J.
Hirst, G. H.
Smillie, Robert


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hollins, A.
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Bellamy, A.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Benn, Wedgwood
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Stephen, Campbell


Bondfield, Margaret
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Strauss, E. A.


Broad, F. A.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sullivan, J.


Bromley, J.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Sutton, J. E.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Taylor, R. A.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kelly, W. T.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Buchanan, G.
Kennedy, T.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Lawson, John James
Thurtie, Ernest


Cape, Thomas
Lee, F.
Tinker, John Joseph


Charieton, H. C.
Lindley, F. W.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Clarke, A. B.
Livingstone, A. M.
Townend, A. E.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Lowth, T.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles


Connolly, M.
Lunn, William
Wallhead, Richard C.


Cove, W. G.
Mackinder, W.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
MacLaren, Andrew
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Crawfurd, H. E.
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Dalton, Hugh
Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)
Wellock, Wilfred


Day, Harry
Maxton, James
Welsh, J. C.


Dennison, R.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (paisley)
Westwood, J.


Duncan, C.
Morris, R. H.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Dunnico, H.
Naylor, T. E.
Whiteley, W.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Palin, John Henry
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Forrest, W.
Paling, W. Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gardner, J. P.
Potts, John s.
Williams, T. (York Dan Valley)


Gillett, George M.
Purcell, A. A.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Windsor, Walter


Greenall, T,
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wright, W.


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Riley, Ben
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Grentell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Ritson, J.



Griffith, F. Kingsley
Scrymgeour, E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Major-General Sir Robert Hutchison


Groves, T.
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
and Major Owen.


Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Shield, G. W.



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Apsley, Lord
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon


Alexander, Sir Wm, (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Atkinson, C.
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Berry, Sir George


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Balniel, Lord
Bethel, A.


Birchall, Majar J. Dearman
Grant, Sir J. A.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Blundell, F. N.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William


Boothby, R. J. G.
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Penny, Frederick George


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W,
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Perring, Sir William George


Briggs, J. Harold
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Briscoe, Richard George
Hammersley, S. S.
Pitcher, G.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Preston, William


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Harland, A.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Hartington, Marquess of
Radford, E. A.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd, Hexham)
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Raine, Sir Walter


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Buckingham, Sir H.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Bullock, Captain M.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Rentoul, G. S.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Ropner, Major L.


Campbell, E. T.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut-Colonel E. A.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth.S.)
Herbert, S. (York, N. R.,Scar. & Wh'by)
Rye, F. G.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hilton, Cecil
Salmon, Major I.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Hohier, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm.,W.)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Christie, J. A.
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Sandon, Lord


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Savery, S. S.


Clarry, Reginald George
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D.Mcl.(Renfrew,W.)


Clayton, G. C.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Skelton, A. N.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Iveagh, Countess of
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Cooper, A. Duff
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cope, Major Sir William
Lamb, J. Q.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Couper, J. B.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Locker-Lampson, Com.O. (Handsw'th)
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.


Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Loder, J. de V.
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Looker, Herbert William
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lougher, Lewis
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Dalkeith, Earl of
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Templeton, W. P.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
MacIntyre, Ian
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Davies, Dr. Vernon
McLean, Major A.
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Eden, Captain Anthony
Macmillan, Captain H.
Waddington, R.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Macquisten, F. A.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Elliot, Major Walter E.
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Ellis, R. G.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Erskine, James Malcolm Montelth
Margesson, Captain D.
Watts, Sir Thomas


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Wells, S. R.


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Fermoy, Lord
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Ford, Sir P. J.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks, Richm'd)


Foster, Sir Henry S.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Fraser, Captain Ian
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Gadia, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Womersley, W. J.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Ganzoni, Sir John
Nelson, Sir Frank
Worthington- Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Gates, Percy
Nicholson, Col. Rt.Hn.W.G.(Ptrst'ld.)



Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nuttall, Ellis
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Gower, Sir Robert
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Sir Victor


Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Warrender.

It being after half-past Seven of the Clock the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 12th. December, successively to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at half-post Seven of the Clock at this day's Sitting.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 209; Noes, 131.

Division No. 209.]
AYES.
[7.38 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Apsley, Lord
Balniel, Lord


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Atkinson, C.
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nuttall, Ellis


Berry, Sir George
Gower, Sir Robert
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Bethel, A.
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Grant, Sir J. A.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Blundell, F. N.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Penny, Frederick George


Boothby, R. J. G.
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Pitcher, G.


Briogs, J. Harold
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Preston, William


Briscoe, Richard George
Hammersley, S. S.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Radford, E. A.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Harland, A.
Raine, Sir Walter


Broun-Lindsay, Major H
Hartington, Marquass of
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'v)
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Rentoul, G. S.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Ropner, Major L.


Bullock, Captain M.
Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd,Henley)
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Campbell, E. T.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Rye, F. G.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Salmon, Major I.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Herbert,S. (York, N. R.,Scar.& Wh'by)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hilton, Cecil
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Hohier, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Chamberlain, Rt.Hn.Sir J.A.(Birm.,W.)
Hope,, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hopkins. J. W. W.
Sandon, Lord


Christie, J. A.
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Savery, S. S.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew,W.)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Skelton, A. N.


Clarry, Reginald George
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Clayton, G. C.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n A Kinc'dine. C.)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Iveagh, Countess of
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Cooper, A. Duff
Lamb. J. Q.
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.


Cope, Major Sir William
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Couper, J. B.
Locker-Lampson, Com.O. (Handsw'th)
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Loder, J. de V.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Looker, Herbert William
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Lougher, Lewis
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Cronkshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Templeton, W. P.


Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Davies, Maj. Geo.F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
MacIntyre, Ian
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
McLean, Major A.
Waddington, R.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Macmillan, Captain H.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Eden, Captain Anthony
Macquisten, F. A.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel
Watts, Sir Thomas


Ellis, R. G.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Wayland, Sir William A.


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Margesson, Captain D.
Wells, S. R.


Erekine, James Malcolm Monteith
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Everard, W. Lindsay
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks, Richm'd)


Fermoy, Lord
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Ford, Sir P. J.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Morrison, H. (Wilts. Salisbury)
Womersley, W. J


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Fraser, Captain Ian
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph



Galbraith, J. F. W.
Nelson, Sir Frank
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Ganzoni, Sir John
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Captain Wallace and Sir Victor


Gates, Percy
Nicholson,Col.Rt.Hon.W.G.(Ptrst'ld.)
Warrender.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Bromley, J.
Dennison, R.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Duncan, C.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Dunnico, H.


Ammon, Charles George
Buchanan, G.
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)


Barnes, A.
Cape, Thomas
Forrest, W.


Barr, J.
Charieton, H. C.
Gardner, J. P.


Batey, Joseph
Clarke, A. B.
Gillett, George M.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)


Bellamy, A.
Connolly, M.
Greenall, T,


Benn, Wedgwood
Cove, W. G.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)


Bondfield, Margaret
Crawfurd, H. E.
Griffith, F. Kingsley


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Dalton, Hugh
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)


Broad, F. A.
Day, Harry
Groves, T.




Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Sullivan, J.


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Morris, R. H
Sutton, J. E.


Hamilton, Sir R (Orkney & Shetland)
Naylor, T. E.
Taylor, R. A.


Hardie, George D.
Owen, Major G.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Harris, Percy A.
Palin, John Henry
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Paling, W.
Thurtie, Ernest


Hirst, G. H.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Tinker, John Joseph


Hollins, A.
Potts, John S.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Purcell, A. A.
Townend, A. E.


Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles


Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Richardson, R. (Hougtiton-le-Spring)
Wallhead, Richard C.


John, William (Rhondda. West)
Riley, Ben
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Ritson, J.
Watts-Morgan, Lt. Col. D. (Rhondda)


Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Scrymgeour, E
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Wellock, Wilfred


Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Welsh, J. C.


Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Shield. G. W.
Westwood, J.


Kelly, W. T.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Kennedy, T.
Shinwell, E.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Lawson, John James
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Lee, F.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Lindley, F. W.
Sitch, Charles H.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Livingstone, A. M.
Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Lowth, T.
Smillie, Robert
Windsor, Waiter


Lunn, William
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Wright, W.


Mackinder, W.
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


MacLaren, Andrew
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip



MacNeill-Weir, L.
Stephen, Campbell
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Hayes.


Maxton, James
Strauss, E. A.

Clauses 28 (Power of local authorities to appropriate property) and 29 (Provision, as to inquiries.)

Question put, "That Clauses 28 and 29 stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 202; Noes, 131.

Division No. 210.]
AYES.
[7.48 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Gunston, Captain D. W.


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Hammersley, S. S.


Alexander, Sir WM. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Harland, A.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Cooper, A. Duff
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Cope, Major Sir William
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)


Apsley, Lord
Couper, J. B.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W
Courtauld, Major J. S.
Henderson,Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)


Atkinson, C.
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Henderson, Lieut. Col. Sir Vivian


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Crooks, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Henn, Sir Sydney H.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.


Balniel, Lord
Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Herbert, S.(York, N. R.Scar. & Wh'by)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hilton, Cecil


Bellairs, Commander Cariyon
Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Hohier, Sir Gerald Fitzroy


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Berry, Sir George
Davies, Dr. Vernon
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.


Bethel, A.
Eden, Captain Anthony
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney. N.)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hume, Sir G. H.


Blundell, F. N.
Elliot, Major Walter E.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Ellis, R. G.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Iveagh, Countess of


Briggs, J. Harold
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)


Briscoe, Richard George
Everard, W. Lindsay
King, Commodore Henry Douglas


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Lamb, J. Q.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Fermoy, Lord
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Ford, Sir P. J.
Loder, J. de V.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Looker, Herbert William


Bullock, Captain M.
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Lougher, Lewis


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Fraser, Captain Ian
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Campbell, E. T.
Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)


Cayzer,Maj.Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)
Gates, Percy
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Macintyre, Ian


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Gower, Sir Robert
McLean, Major A.


Chamberlain, Rt.Hn.Sir J.A.(Birm.,W.)
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Macmillan, Captain H.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Grant, Sir J. A.
Macquisten, F. A.


Christie, J. A.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
MacRobert, Alexander M


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Clarry, Reginald George
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Margesson, Capt. D.


Clayton, G. C.
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.


Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Templeton, W. P.


Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Rentoul, G. S.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Ropner, Major L.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Ruggies-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Waddington, R.


Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Rye, F. G.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Salmon, Major I.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Sandeman, N. Stewart
Watts, Sir Thomas


Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph
Sanderson, Sir Frank
Wayland, Sir William A.


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sandon, Lord
Wells, S. R.


Nicholson, Col. Rt.Hon.W.G. (Ptrst'ld.)
Savery, S. S.
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Nuttall, Ellis
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D.Mcl. (Renfrew, W)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Skelton, A. N.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Penny, Frederick George
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Southby, Commander A. R. J.
Womersley, W. J


Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Pilcher, G.
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Preston, William
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.



Price, Major C. W. M.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Radford, E. A.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Captain Wallace and Sir Victor


Raine, Sir Walter
Sugden, Sir Wilfred
Warrender.


Rawson, Sir Cooper
Tasker, R. Inigo



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife. West)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Shield, G. W.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Ammon, Charles George
Hardie, George D.
Shinwell, E.


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Barnes, A.
Hirst, G. H.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Barr, J.
Hollins, A
Sitch, Charles H.


Batey, Joseph
Hudson, J. H. Huddersfield
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Smillie, Robert


Bellamy, A.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe.)


Benn, Wedgwood
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bondfield, Margaret
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Stephen, Campbell


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Broad, F. A.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Strauss, E. A.


Bromley, J.
Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Sullivan, J.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Kelly, W. T.
Sutton, J. E.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kennedy, T.
Taylor, R. A.


Buchanan, G.
Lawson, John James
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Lee, F.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Cape, Thomas
Lindley, F. W.
Thurtie, Ernest


Charleton, H. C.
Livingstone, A. M.
Tinker, John Joseph


Clarke, A. B.
Lowth, T.
Tomilnson, R. P.


Connolly, M.
Lunn, William
Townend, A. E.


Cove, W. G.
Mackinder, W.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
MacLaren, Andrew
Wallhead, Richard C.


Crawfurd, H. E.
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Dalton, Hugh
Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Day, Harry
Maxton, James
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Dennison, R.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Wellock, Wilfred


Duncan, C.
Morris, R. H.
Welsh, J. C.


Dunnico, H.
Naylor, T. E.
Westwood, J.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Owen, Major G.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Palin, John Henry
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Forrest, W.
Paling, W.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Gardner, J. P.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Potts, John S.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Gillett, George M.
Purcell, A. A.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Windsor, Walter


Greenall, T.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wright, W.


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Riley, Ben
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Ritson, J.



Griffith, F. Kingsley
Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Serymgeour, E.
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Hayes.


Groves, T.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

CLAUSE 30.—(Agricultural lands and heritages.)

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dennis Herbert): It will perhaps be for the convenience of the Committee, as the first
Amendment is to move out Sub-section (1) and to insert other words in its place, if Sub-section (1) be formally moved out first, and the discussion then taken on the Question that other words be substituted.

THE LORD ADVOCATE: I beg to move, in page 30, line 33, to leave out Subsection (1), and to insert instead thereof the words:
(1) For the purposes both of the owner's and of the occupier's share of rates as hereinafter defined the annual value of agricultural lands and heritages shall be arrived at by deducting from the gross annual value in lieu of the amount specified in the Act of 1926 an amount representing 87½ per cent., and accordingly the First Schedule to the Act of 1926 shall for the purposes of such rates have effect as if paragraph 14 and the words in the first column of paragraph 13 'for the purposes of the owner's share of rates' were omitted, and as if for the words in the second column of paragraph 13 '25 per cent.' there were substituted the words '87½ per cent.,' and any reference to the said Schedule in any Act or in any order made under the Act of 1926 shall he construed as a reference to the said Schedule as so amended.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Question proposed, "That the proposed words be there inserted."

The LORD ADVOCATE: This new Sub-section is, with one or two small additions, really a re-drafting of the original Sub-section. The object of it is to make clear, in the first place, that de-rating which is effected in the case of agricultural subjects by this Clause applies to rates "as hereinafter defined." In the definition Clause hon. Members will find, on taking into account certain Government Amendments which appear on the Paper, that rates will include water rates other than domestic water rates. Therefore the meaning of this new Sub-section is that the de-rating provisions in regard to agricultural subjects will apply to all rates other than domestic water rates.

Mr. MAXTON: Will the Lord Advocate tell us exactly the words of the Amendment that bring about that change?

The LORD ADVOCATE: The first line of the Amendment which says:
For the purposes both of the owner's and of the occupier's share of rates as hereinafter defined …
That is a pointer to the definition Clause, and in the definition Clause the hon. Member will find the word "rate" defined, in the first place, as including the water rate, and then he will find the water rate defined as excluding the
domestic water rate. The reason for that is obvious. This is really a drafting Amendment and that is why you find, in the concluding words, the following:
and any reference to the said Schedule in any Act or any order made under the Act of 1926 shall be construed as a reference to the said Schedule as so amended.
We are providing for payment on a basis of one-eighth in the case of agriculture, and hon. Members will note that 87½ per cent. is seven-eighths of 100.

Mr. WHEATLEY: We all agree with the Government on that point.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I am glad to find one point on which the right hon. Gentleman and I can agree, and under these happy conditions I have pleasure in moving my Amendment.

Mr. MAXTON: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 1, to leave out the words "both of the owner's and".
The purpose of this Amendment is obvious to the Committee. On these benches we have opposed the whole of the scheme from the outset. We believe that it will not fulfil the intention which the Government avow to be the intention of the Bill, and that is to provide relief for industry and substantially to relieve the general stagnation that overhangs the industry of this country. We have got a case for industry in general in support of our opposition to the whole de-rating scheme, we certainly have a tremendous case on this particular Clause and in support, of this particular Amendment. Why, for the sake of revivifying British industry, we should be asked to make a gift of a sum, which, I think, has been calculated by the Secretary of State for Scotland at £770,000, to the landowners of Scotland this year and for each succeeding year, is something that I am quite unable to appreciate.
8.0 p.m.
On the Second Reading, I ventured to suggest that the total amount of relief given to agriculture, if it managed to find its way into the farmer's hands, would not enter as an appreciable factor into the production of any crop on the farm. This relief to the farmer would not show itself in the price of a gallon of milk. How it is going to express itself in the price of a pint or a quart of milk, which are the ordinary
domestic quantities purchased for consumption, if it cannot find expression in a gallon, is something which I do not know. I have in my pocket a letter which I received to-day from the gentleman who is responsible for the control of the largest wholesale milk supply in the west of Scotland, in which he tells me that the agriculturists of Scotland who are engaged in dairy farming are dumping their surplus supplies over the Border and cannot find purchasers for the surplus supplies of milk, even when they are sent across the Border into Birmingham and London. He tells me that Birmingham has abundant supplies of milk at 2s. a gallon. He also tells me that 1s. 6d. a gallon is the price in Scotland, and that the same milk has got to be sold across the Border for 1s. 3d. The price of milk in London to the retailer is something like 2s. 4d. a gallon, while the producer is only getting 1s.
What possible stimulation is there going to be to Scottish agriculture by reducing the rates to the farmers in order that they may produce their commodities at a cheaper price and, presumably, secure a larger sale when the agriculturists of Scotland cannot dispose of the quantities of milk which they are producing? If we had a case against the farmer getting relief from rates we have a' tremendous case against the landlords, because the farmer is a productive worker. Presumably, on the type of farm that I know, a small mixed dairying farm of 150 acres up to 300 or 400 acres, that we find in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, where the rental would be something like £240 a year or thereabouts, the farmer, if I understand this Clause aright, is only to be rated at £30 and the landlord is to be similarly rated.
If the general redistribution of the burden of rating, intended by the Government in this Bill, takes effect, presumably about 5s, in the £ will cover the rates in an agricultural district of that description. That means to say that the landowner and the farmer are going to be asked to pay something like £7 10s. per annum in the shape of their contribution to the expenses of local administration. I understand that the farmer and the landowner have a remedy
already, although the whole thing is tremendously involved. In Clause 33, we find that the occupier, when any rate becomes due in respect of such lands and heritages, is entitled to recover from the owner thereof
by retention out of rent or otherwise a sum equal to the amount of the owner's share of such rate multiplied by two and one-half.
That is, provided he has entered into an agreement prior to the 16th May, 1928. There is no such obligation on the owner if agreement is entered into after that date. Even that obligation only remains binding for a limited period, so that we are proposing in this Bill not merely to relieve the farmer of his rates. Perhaps the farmer has a case, although I have contended that there is no case that supports the view that any relief given to him will stimulate agricultural production.
As I read the situation for agriculture, the problem is to see that the population of Great Britain have the necessary money in their pockets that will enable them to purchase British agricultural products as against the cheaper products that are imported, by patriotic British citizens, from China, Holland and other parts of the world. Margarine has got to be bought by the working classes in place of butter. Preserved eggs have to be got in place of new, fresh laid eggs that the home farmer can so easily produce. It seems to me that the intelligent way to stimulate British agriculture is to make it possible for the people of Great Britain, by enhanced purchasing power, to purchase wholesome commodities produced by the farmers of their own land rather than to have to depend upon second-rate, unfresh, adulterated products from other countries. That seems to me to be the basic proposition for the restoration of agricultural prosperity in Great Britain, but, if we assume the truth of the Government's case that by relieving the farmer of a large proportion of his rates so that he, a man living usually in a very commodious house, usually situated in a healthy neighbourhood with excellent amenities, is relieved of all his rates except one-eighth, while the slum dweller in the Bridgeton division of Glasgow, with a very limited income, has to pay eight-eighths of his rates, that seems to me to be quite contrary to any conceptions of justice and common decency and
fair play that I have ever been taught to believe or to appreciate. But the Government, in its wisdom, and presumably having the benefit of expert advice that is not available to me, has decided that this very worthy person, the farmer, is to have his rates taken down to one-eighth.
I was told the other night by a gentleman who has made a very close study of agricultural affairs in this country, that, if one reads the history of legislation in this country, the farming industry has been the pampered darling of the House of Commons. Always the various political parties in power has striven to secure for themselves what is known as the "farming vote." I hope that the political parties of the future will not continue to pursue this will-o'-the-wisp, because I am credibly informed—and I give it to my friend the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) for his personal use in electioneering—that there is no constituency where the farming vote is of any appreciable account, and I suggest to my hon. Friend, with his personal knowledge and personal qualities, that it would be very much better for him if he were to devote himself to the flapper vote rather than to the farmers' vote. Legislation has been poured out for them. The farmer has always come to the House of Commons and wept about being on the verge of bankruptcy, but anybody who studies the reports of bankruptcy cases in the newspapers, will find that bankruptcies among farmers are very few indeed when compared with the number of bankruptcies in ordinary commercial and industrial undertakings. They have good voices for weeping about their condition, and they always seem to be able to impose their views upon Governments. Certainly they have imposed their desires in a very strong form upon the present Government.
Therefore, they are to be asked to pay only one-eighth of what the ordinary citizen is asked to pay, even thought they are getting very much more out of the public services than is the average suburban and city dweller. But while I object strongly to the granting of this relief to the farmer, I am almost inarticulate with rage at the suggestion that a similar relief should be given to the landowner. It would perhaps be inappropriate for me in this Committee to
relate the history of Scottish landowning. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston), in a very excellent and readable and not too expensive work, called "Our Noble Families," with the sub-title, "How the Lords stole Scotland," has dealt with the Scottish landowning families faithfully, and, I hope, in a not unkindly fashion. He has, I think, proved to the satisfaction of all disinterested readers—and he is fully backed up by the well-established history of our country—that the history of the establishment of the big proportion of our Scottish landowners is a history of plunder and pillage. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary, who represents the Government here, bears a name which is honoured in the history of Border forays. He knows how his ancestors sallied across the Border and deliberately stole the cattle of the people who lived on the other side of the frontier. They were honoured and revered by all who lived at that time for their success in those enterprises. But the hon. and gallant Gentleman's ancestors were foolish in the extreme inasmuch as they only stole movables and perishables. If he had had the right kind of ancestors, they would have stolen real estate. They would have planked themselves down on a sufficient space of the surface of Scotland and said, "Here we are, and here we rest."
That is the practice which has gone on for hundreds of years and, so far, there has been nothing in the way of effective protest. Each year Scottish agriculture and industry have to pay tribute to a body of people who are a mere group of receivers of tribute. As I have pointed out, a farmer in the neighbourhood in which I live, pays to the landowner £240 a, year of rent and the landowner does nothing in connection with the running of that farm. I know his excuse. This is how he justifies his existence. He says, "I have the responsible task of picking a suitable farmer who can farm the land well." That is a job for any man to spend a lifetime on! Scottish farm leases usually run for long periods and descend from generation to generation, which means that this job, by which the landowner justifies his existence, may be done by a member of the family about once in every hundred years. Yet this Government approve of and continue this
robbery. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary will perhaps recollect that in one of the villages of South Lanark, associated with the Covenanting history of Scotland, there is a cottage, above the door of which is a carved stone bearing the words:
In this house dwelt…,tailor, who had his ears cut off with his own shears by the Bloody Graham of Claverhouse. This stone is erected to commemorate and perpetuate the brutal outrage.
The Government propose to perpetuate a brutal outrage by allowing the farmers of Scotland to be mulcted by the landowners in the form of rent and then in addition they come along in this Clause and say to the landowner, "Not only are you to be allowed to take the rent of this working farm, but you are to be excused the payment of all but a miserable fraction of the rates which legitimately fall upon it." I hope I am a broad-minded and tolerant man. I hope I do not take extreme views on important issues. I hope I try to realise my responsibilities to my constituents and to the country which trusts me, as one of 615 Members of the House of Commons, to husband the resources of the nation and direct its internal economy in an intelligent way. But it is asking too much, even of a moderate man like myself, to ask me to vote here in a responsible way for a further present of nearly £1,000,000 of public money to a very small handful of people in Scotland who are rendering no service either to the agricultural industry or to industry in general. Nor are they, as a mass, rendering any serious service to the general government of Scotland, either through the House of Commons or through the local governing bodies.
Scotland is becoming very much as Ireland was in previous history, a country of absentee landlords. The farmers, the farm labourers, the industrial workers of Scotland, have to work on the land of Scotland or down in the mines of Scotland, or in the factories of Scotland, in order to keep the landowners of Scotland and the friends and relations of those landowners in ease and luxury either among the social pleasures of London or in more salubrious parts of the world during the rather rigorous weather which prevails here at this time of year. I think it is atrocious. I
congratulate hon. Members on the back benches opposite from the bottom of my heart for rising up and proving that they were not merely a collection of dumb, driven cattle, and that they were prepared to resist the slavish tyranny imposed upon them by their so-called leaders. If they were justified yesterday in turning against their Government on the demand that that Government should give a gift to Irish landlords, surely the Scottish Members on that side, though a small and diminishing band, have enough sense of national self-respect not to stand for this particular hit of public graft, because that is all it is.
Always in this House we say, "Thank Heaven, our politics are clean. We do not have in this country any of those disgraceful things that discredit American politics. There is no Tammany in this country. We do not have the big political 'boss' who swings and sways elections and who pays bribes here and bribes there to rum-runners and bootleggers and breakers of the law." We pride ourselves on the cleanliness with which we run our political system. [Interruption.] I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten), if I heard his interruption correctly, that a rum-runner is a decent person compared with a Member of the present Government. We know of better ways in Scotland of giving money to our friends than by engaging in the bookmaking business. Here we have this atrocious case of this Government giving relief to this landowning class, and I do not know one of them, I cannot think of any big Scottish landowner, who has been in the bankruptcy court in my time. Perhaps hon. and right hon. Members opposite are better informed than I am. Can they tell me of any Scottish landowner who has been in the bankruptcy court? Can they tell me of any one of them who has had to seek parish relief? Can they tell me of any Scottish landowner who has had to stand in the queue at an Employment Exchange? Can they tell me of any one of them who has been summoned to the small debt court and threatened with eviction because he could not pay his rent? I have seen one or two in the divorce court, but none in the court for eviction out of their homes.
There has been no poverty among the land-owning classes in Scotland. There has been no need to relieve them of so-called burdens, because they have not been carrying a burden. They have been a burden that has been carried by the whole industry of Scotland, and I repeat in this House what I have said before, that the real burden that weighs Britain down in competitive industry among the other countries of the world is that, while the industries of the other countries have to carry capitalism on their backs, Britain has not merely to carry modern capitalism, with all its interests and profits and dividends, but it has to carry feudalism as well. If England is bad in having to carry not merely its industrial magnates but its feudal magnates, Scotland is infinitely worse, because feudalism is even more strongly entrenched and more rapacious in its demands in Scotland; it is in a stronger strategic position because of the old feu system that still obtains in Scotland, dug right in there, drawing tribute week after week, rendering absolutely no assistance to agriculture. Anyone who knows a number of the farming population knows that the landowner of Scotland who is prepared to assist his tenant farmer with improvements, with new steadings, with better buildings, with assistance in improving stock or draining land, is the exception and not the rule; and the Scottish tenant farmer has more difficulty in extracting a small repair out of his landowner than has the tenant in a town dwelling in extracting a similar concession or improvement from the owner of town property. All of us who know anything about working class conditions know that it is almost impossible for the town dweller to get any concession of that description from his house owner, and the landowner in the country is infinitely worse than the house owner in the town.
Yet you come along and you ask us to pass this Bill. At this time in the Twentieth Century, for the sake of restoring trade, you ought to come forward with a Measure saying that landowning by private individuals in Scotland has got to be put an end to, that the land has got to be owned by the nation as a whole, with the agriculture of the country really conducted from national sources, where there is national interest and national knowledge. It should be
a basis for the whole industrial, cultural, and physical development of the people, and it ought to be in the hands of the nation, and you should be coming along to this House asking us to abolish private land owning; but here you are coming along instead and asking us to approve of the continuation of the tribute that we have paid for these hundreds of years, and in addition you are asking us to give a present out of public funds of nearly £21,000,000. I protest, with all the strength which I possess, against any such atrocity. I object in the strongest possible terms, and I am satisfied that if the Government proceed with this, Scotland will give a very definite expression of opinion on the subject within the next few months.

Sir R. HORNE: I had no thought of taking part in this particular Debate, but the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), who has just sat down, has made an appeal to the self-respect of Scotsmen which I should think no Scotsman could resist. I have not the picturesque imagination of my hon. Friend, nor have I that gift of eloquence with which he adorns all his speeches and delights the House, but I am one of those very ordinary people with no fancy and no play of wit, and, therefore, confined, in so far as I have any remarks to make on this subject, to a direct reference to the realities of the position rather than to those fantasies which have been created in the speech which my hon. Friend has just delivered. I do not propose to go into the matter in the same way as he has done, because, after all, the principle to which he has adverted is one that was discussed at length on the Second Reading of the Bill, and, therefore, it would be quite wrong and out of order to descant at any length upon that side of the question. But let me just say, with regard to the question of injustice, to which he referred, that I think he has mistaken the position. He asked: "How is it that a farmer should be relieved of seven-eighths of his rating bill, whereas the man who lives in a town is no getting this relief at all?" He described that as an injustice. But you must advert to the conditions before the change, and you must, if you are going to find that there is any injustice, assume
that everything was just before and that the alteration creates the injustice.
The principle upon which this Bill is based, as I understand it, is that our rating scheme in this country, with regard to its bearing on the land and on our factory organisation, was one which was completely out of accord with modern conditions. Whereas in the old times the land, being the chief subject of wealth in this country, had to bear the great burden of rating, in modern days it no longer has the productive benefit which it had enjoyed; therefore, to tax it as we have done in the past, and to tax factories as we have been doing, was to create a general injustice and produce a condition of things in which the rating system no longer was able to satisfy the country's needs. What we are doing at the moment is not to create an injustice by a change, but to put things on a proper basis. Anybody who has compared the burdens imposed on land with the burdens imposed on other forms of property, must come to the conclusion that the burden was greater than the land could bear. Coming to the case of the farmers, I admit that if we were able to increase the consuming power of a large part of our population, we would be in a position to buy articles which are more expensive, but that is not a very effective way of doing it, because, so long as Denmark can send us eggs as good as ours, producing them in conditions in which wages are not so high as those paid in this country—

Sir R. HAMILTON: May I ask on what grounds the right hon. Gentleman makes that statement?

Sir R. HORNE: I am repeating statistics which have been given upon that question. I have not got them at my fingers ends, but I do not think that it is doubted that our wages are higher than those in Denmark. Certainly there are many parts of the Continent where butter is produced at a much lower price than in this country, and under my hon. Friend's suggestion there would be still a certain amount of dairy produce—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I really do not think that on this Amend-
ment the right hon. Gentleman can go into the whole question of agricultural policy. Since the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has moved the Amendment to the proposed Amendment, we are now limited to discussing whether the relief should be granted to owners and occupiers, or to occupiers only.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: On that ruling, I suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton went a good deal outside that point, and I think that we should be allowed to deal with the farmers' relief. May I submit that we should be allowed to go as far as he did in moving the Amendment?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member overlooks the fact that, when the hon. Member for Bridgeton was speaking, the question before the Committee was the proposed new Sub-section. Since he has moved the Amendment we are limited to the words of the Amendment to the proposed Amendment. If that Amendment be disposed of, it will be open to the Committee to go back to the discussion on the question whether the new Sub-section shall be inserted.

Sir R. HORNE: I will confine myself to the Amendment to the proposed Amendment and deal simply with the question of the owner. The hon. Member for Bridgeton put forward a view, which is entirely fantastic, with regard to the real facts of Scottish landowning. No doubt in times past there was a good deal of stealing of property. My hon. Friend seems to think that the Border family of the Elliots were not wise in taking only movable goods in the shape of cattle instead of large tracts of property. Anybody who knows anything about the conditions of things nowadays will acclaim the far-sightedness of the Elliots, because in fact that movable property has turned out in the end to be a far greater advantage to them than large tracts of Scottish territory would have been. What has been the history of the owning of Scottish land? In whatever way these properties may have been acquired originally—on which there may be many opinions—there is no question that, taking agricultural property, the amounts derived from it at the present day do not represent anything at all in the shape of rent for the land itself;
and the dividends, if I may so put it in a business sense, do not amount to more than 3 per cent. upon the cash capital which has been spent upon the buildings, drainage, and fencing of the territory which is let to the tenant farmers. No revenue is being obtained from the land, and it is an error for my hon. Friend to say that we have burdened this country with some capitalist incubus and feudalistic tradition. The only burden from which we suffer is lack of a return on capital which has been spent on the land of Scotland by the people who have owned it. Are they not entitled to something upon their capital?
I hear with wonder and amazement the attacks which are made upon those who have spent capital on the land. Instead of being treated as benefactors, they are treated as pariahs who ought never to be recognised in any decent society. I cast my mind back to that annus mirabilis when the Labour party was in office in 1924. The main feature of that year was the advent of the Russian delegation. What did that Russian delegation want? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] I am perfectly in order—

Mr. JOHNSTON: On a point of Order. Shall we be allowed to reply to an attack upon the Labour Government's dealings with the Russian people in 1924?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I think that the right hon. Gentleman introduced it merely as an illustration.

Sir R. HORNE: It is an illustration, and it is going to be so apposite that hon. Members opposite will not like it. What was the main request which the Russian delegation had to make to this country? It was that they should get a loan of capital—

Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Surely when many of us are waiting to advance important points on behalf of large Scottish cities, it is not in order that the time of the Committee should be taken up by a street corner speech such as the right hon. Gentleman is delivering.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I have noticed in all quarters of the Committee that there is a tendency to take illustrations which are somewhat wide of the Amendment. It is becoming a somewhat general practice, but obviously we
cannot go into the whole question of the Labour Government's policy in regard to Russia.

Sir R. HORNE: My hon. Friend made an attack on this Sub-section on the ground that we are making a gift to capitalists and I am only replying to that. I say that, so far from deriding the capitalist, it ought to be within the recollection of the hon. Member that the only country in the world which, so far as I know, got rid of its capital made its first approach to this country to ask for a loan in order to carry on business. It does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to make any animadversions against the people who have supplied the capital which has enabled the land of this country to be worked.

Mr. MAXTON: The right hon. Gentleman will recollect, I think, that the necessity for the Russians to come here for capital was due to the fact that they had made the mistake of leaving the land in private hands.

Sir R. HORNE: The reason they were hero was because they had destroyed their capital and came here to get more. I say those who have spent money on the land of Scotland are entitled to every consideration at the hands of the Government, because without their enterprise there would have been no revenue at all from the land. In the condition in which the agricultural industry of this country finds itself, and with the difficulties under which it carries on its business, this is a very much-needed reform. I shall only add this: The right hon. Gentleman who leads the Liberal party has put before the country a scheme for land reform. As everyone knows, at one time he made repeated attacks upon the landowners of this country, but since then he has made public acknowledgment of the fact that those landlords have been very badly treated by the State. Hon. Members will find the allusion in a speech he made in Caxton Hall. He said the landlords had done their duty by the country, and were in no sense guilty of having taken too much out of the land for their own benefit.

Mr. MacLAREN: In what year was that?

Sir R HORNE: I think it was about 1919.

Mr. MacLAREN: Just when he had the war fever on.

Sir R. HORNE: I hope he was sincere, even when he had the war fever on.

Mr. MacLAREN: Oh no.

Sir R. HORNE: The scheme which he has put before the country is based upon the fact that landlords have not sufficient money to provide the capital which the land requires, and if that be true, as I take it the Liberal party, at least, will agree —[Interruption.] The Liberal party have apparently acknowledged, through the mouth of their leader, that the land of this country requires a great deal of capital which we cannot expect the landlords to supply on account of their poverty. If that he true, then surely the time has arrived when something should be done by which the burden imposed upon agricultural land is decreased and an opportunity given to make a fair revenue out of it. Accordingly, I am wholly opposed to the Amendment.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: If the Government are to be guided by enlightened consideration for the public interest or the interests of agriculture, and, I would say the interest of the landlords themselves, they will accept this Amendment to the proposed Amendment. The only effect of this particular provision of the Bill is that the process of giving benefit to the landlords is accelerated; even without it that benefit would be inevitable. The whole benefit of rating relief will go, must go, over a course of years, and by the operation of the economic law of rent, to the benefit of one partner in the agricultural industry.

Mr. MacLAREN: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir B. Horne) cannot deny that.

Sir R. HORNE: I do.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I will quote against the right hon. Gentleman authorities which I think even he will find it difficult to dispute. I say it would be very much to the interest of the landlords if the Government would accept this Amendment to the proposed Amendment. The effect of the Bill as it is drafted is to give an annual payment of £776,000 to the landlords and of £110,000 to the
tenants, but even if that direct payment were not made to the landlords, and if the whole of the relief could be given to the tenants, in the long run, and not such a very long run, the effect would be the same. Landlords are making a great mistake if they think there is going to be an immediate advantage to them of even half this £776,000. In the next seven years, during which time they are entitled to keep the whole of this £776,000 the immediate effect will be that that money will be taken back from them. As the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Philip Snowden, pointed out when dealing with the general question of rating relief, that money will be taken back from them as income tax and super-tax.
I have had the figures worked out for an estate of £4,000. For the first seven years, when he is paying rates and taxes on the highest level, and paying back half-rates to the tenants, the total advantage to the landlord will be £62—on that rent roll of £4,000. But is it said that this means that the landlord is not going to get any benefit? Of course he is. During the whole time the value of estates is rising by the full amount of this £776,000 a year. I must assume, and I do assume, that the object of the Government is to help agriculture as a whole, to help every partner in agriculture, to help all engaged in agriculture to strengthen its position. If that be so, it is an object which can only be served by a system of relief which distributes its benefits fairly as between the parties to agriculture and not by a system which gives benefit to one partner only.
The other day I was looking up the Debates on the Act of 1896, and I read a speech by a Scottish landlord who was then a Liberal, though by no means an extreme Liberal, for he has since become a Conservative. It was Mr. Munro Ferguson, as he was then, now Lord Novar. He said he objected to what was then being done in his own interest as a landlord as well as in the interests of justice. He said everybody knew how the economic law of rent worked. We also know how it works out in practice. When men come asking for an empty farm, you first thin out the men who you do not think will make good tenants, through not having sufficient capital or other reasons, and you come down to two or three equally good men, with equally
good qualifications. Then, according to the rules of the game, according to the rules of the competitive rent system, you must let the farm to the man who offers the higher rent, and each man will in future offer higher rent because of the lower rates he will be paying.
There is one class which is helped by this Bill, and in regard to which its provision is thoroughly sound, and that is the owner-occupier. Up to the present, the owner-occupier has had a very hard time. The owner-occupiers constituted a very small class before the War when prices were at their ordinary level, but after the War they bought their farms which were being sold over their heads at high prices and are very much in need of assistance at the present time. There are many ways which ought to be employed to assist occupier-owners, and, if the Government accept this Amendment it will mean that some other steps will have to be taken to meet the case of the occupier-owner. It has been said that what is now proposed is an act of graft; in fact, it is said that it is a gift from the Tories to the landed interests. If so, it is one of the most deadly kind. In the future, it will be said from every platform that under this Measure £776,000 is being paid to the landlords and only £110,000 to the tenants. When the landlord comes to the Douse of Commons and claims his just rights, he will find his case prejudiced by the suspicion and sense of injustice created by the proposals which the Government have now placed before the House of Commons.
The hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division (Mr. Maxton), in the course of his criticisms, said that notwithstanding the statements made about the hardships of the landlords, very few of them had gone into bankruptcy. I would like to point out that a good many landlords have had to sell their property, and they have ceased to be landlords before they have to face bankruptcy. As a matter of fact, there are in the County of Caithness more landed estates in the possession of trustees for bondholders than there are in the possession of private landlords. There are a great many landlords who deny themselves things and exert themselves to the utmost in order to develop their
estates. I have heard farmers of extreme radical and socialist views complaining that certain landlords are doing so well by their tenants that they are actually maintaining "this rotten system." But even if it be true that the great majority of landlords will use this money to the best of their ability for the improvement of their estates, there will he a large number of landlords who will devote the money to other purposes.
9.0 p.m.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) talked about the landlords having a very hard time at the present moment and not having enough money to improve their estates. For those reasons, the right hon. Gentleman argued that we should give them something in order to improve their estates. That is not the way in which we ought to spend public money. We are responsible for seeing that public money is spent in the public interest, and we have no right to give money to people in the hope that they will spend it on the object which we wish to serve. When we are giving money for other objects and in other directions we are very careful to lay down such safeguards as will ensure that the money will be devoted to the objects which we are all anxious to serve. There are two classes of landlords who will not spend the money in this way. The first is the class who bought estates since the War merely for the sporting interest. I have already quoted a case in which a purchaser told his tenants that he paid too much for the property, because it was only the sporting rights in which he was interested and that he could spend no more in agricultural improvements. That man will not spend the, money he receives under this Bill upon improving his estate. In the ease of the trustees and the bondholders to whom I have referred, what will be their legal duty? Under this Bill, they will take the money offered to them and give it to the bondholders, and they will not spend it upon improving their estates. If this method of relief is to be adopted at all, it can only be safeguarded in one way, and that is by giving the tenants security of tenure. I wish the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead had not left the Committee, because I desire to give him very high authority for a statement which I made that, unless security be
given, the benefit under this Bill will undoubtedly go to the landlord. My authority is Mr. Graham Murray who was Lord Advocate in 1896. He said:
As regards that peculiar class of crofter, it is of course absolutely impossible that in any way the relief of the occupiers' rates could ever reach the landlord.
There are three things to note. The Tory Government did not think it was a good thing to do that in 1896, and now they are defending that course. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead said it would be a good thing to give the money to the landlords because they would spend it on their property. In 1896, they did not give this particular direct relief to the landlord. Since that time, we have had repeated Royal Commissions. There was a Royal Commission in 1902 and another in 1911, and they all reported against this proposal. The Dunedin Report made no recommendation in favour of it, although that Report traversed the whole ground.
The second thing to note is that by inference it is admitted that, if security of tenure does not exist, the benefit does not go to the tenant. Thirdly, under the Crofters Act of 1886 the crofters had security of tenure, and, so long as they were safeguarded in that way, the benefits could not accrue to the landlord. Therefore the right way to deal with this question is to give the farmers and the smallholders security of tenure. I think it would be much better to scrap the scheme and substitute the one which we Liberals have placed before the country for the revival of agriculture. If you will not do that, the next best thing would he to give security of tenure to the occupier, then you will be able to anchor the relief to the tenant. If you do not do that, then, in the interests of the country and of agriculture and in the interests of the landlords themselves, the right course is to accept this Amendment to the proposed Amendment, and then introduce other provisions which would deal effectively with the case of the owner-occupier and small-holder. I have suggested a scheme and the necessary amendment is on the paper whereby it would be possible for small-holders to go to the Land Court and get their rents reduced. If this Amendment to the proposed Amendment were accepted and some alternatives such as those I have proposed were then adop-
ted, that would be a better way of serving the interests of agriculture than the method proposed in the Bill.

Mr. R. W. SMITH: May I ask the hon. Baronet if his suggestion is that the landlords would receive the whole £770,000?

Sir A. SINCLAIR: The figures given by the Secretary of State for Scotland indicated that the amount of benefit from relief in respect of owners' rates was estimated at £770,000, and the relief in respect of occupiers' rates at £110,000. During the currency of an existing lease an occupier would receive from his landlord one-half of the relief given in respect of the owner's rates. That is made clear in the Bill; it is during the currency of the existing leases, or for a period of seven years.

Mr. SMITH: I understood the hon. Baronet to say that the owners receive £770,000, but it is only half that amount.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: No; the hon. Member has misunderstood the answer. The Bill is quite clear on that point. It is only during the currency of existing leases, or, in the case of a sitting tenant from year to year, for seven years, that the tenant receives half the landlord's relief. Under the permanent arrangement, it is estimated that the relief in respect of owners' rates will be £770,000, and in respect of occupiers' rates £110,000.

Mr. SMITH: For the next seven years it will be half that?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: This position arises because, as I understand, in England the tenant pays all the rates and the landlord none. They are being relieved of all the rates, that is to say, the land is being relieved. It does not matter who pays the rates; the point is to relieve the land of the burden. If the specious arguments from the other side were to be accepted, the result would be that the Scottish landlord would not be relieved at all. We are going to get our relief for the land, and it does not matter who pays the rates so long as the land gets the relief. The presumption is that at the end of the seven years, when it comes to making a new bargain, the tenant will be able to say to the landlord, "You are getting your land so much cheaper, and, therefore, I expect a reduction of my rent."

Sir A. SINCLAIR: If prospective tenant A said that, and if B said, "Never mind about the reduction of the rates on your land; I am prepared to give you so much," and if both are equally good men and equally well qualified farmers, B is likely, and he ought, under the rules of competitive rents, to get the farm.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: What has that to do with it? That might happen in regard to any other commodity, and it could not be prevented. I am assuming that the sitting tenant will be able to say to his landlord, "You will be getting the same return out of your land; you are being relieved of your rates, and the land is being relieved in order to help agriculture." Is it suggested that we in Scotland are not going to be relieved of our rates—because there is no other meaning that can be attached to it—

Sir A. SINCLAIR: If the hon. and learned Member is putting that question to me, the answer is quite simple. By the courtesy of the Chair, I was allowed to say at the end of my speech that we have later on the Paper an alternative proposal for dealing with this question, but to have given a long description of the methods we propose would have been completely out of order.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: The hon. Baronet, towards the end of his speech, said something about going before a Land Court. I do not think that that is a particularly
satisfactory procedure. As regards security of tenure, there is ample security of tenure in Scotland. In my long professional experience I have never known a tenant to be pushed out of his farm, and I would like to ask the hon. Baronet if he himself knows of any case of eviction in Scotland. [Interruption.] There may be one or two, but they are very few.

Mr. JOHNSTON: The Farmers' Union will supply them.

Mr. BARR: I have known of cases in my own experience time and again.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I have not come across them. There were cases in generations gone by, and the same thing happened in England, but now, even in the case of holdings from year to year, evictions are the rarest possible occurrences. Indeed, the strength of local public feeling in our country districts
is so great that no landlord could hold up his head if he put a decent man out of his farm. I remember a member of the Farmers' Union complaining to me that one of the faults about agriculture was—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. and learned Member is going rather far from the Amendment to the proposed Amendment under discussion.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: My observations arose out of the remarks of the hon. Baronet on the question of security of tenure, and I was merely pointing out that they were not really germane to this particular Amendment or to the Clause, which allows the landlord, as the man is at present paying the rates, to get the same reduction for his land as is allowed under the English Bill. I think it would be disastrous if the Clause were to be subjected to this Amendment, because we have no guarantee that the subsequent Amendment will be carried, and it would mean in effect that Scotland would not get the same relief that was obtained in England.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: If this Clause were really intended to bring the agricultural industry into a prosperous condition, I do not think there would be very much opposition to it from this side of the Committee. As one who represents an industrial constituency, I want to make it perfectly plain that we on this side are as keenly anxious as anyone on the other side to see the agricultural industry prosperous, and I rather resent the opinion that seems to be held by hon. Members on the other side that they are the only people who stand up for the interests of the agricultural section of the community. This Amendment does not propose to affect the man who is really the main individual in the working of the agricultural industry of this country. There is no Amendment from this side that will make worse the position of the farmer, but we do propose that the least useful member of the agricultural industry should not be included in the benefits that are proposed in this Clause.
I am not going to make any personal reference to the landlord. He may be a perfectly nice fellow, and I do not doubt that in most cases he is as good as any-
one on this side; but I think it is bound to be admitted by any reasonable person in any quarter of the Committee that the landlord is not now necessary to the working of the agricultural industry, and that it is quite possible to do without him. We are not proposing to eliminate the landlord, but we ask that the landlord should not get the amount of money that has been mentioned. If there is to be close upon £1,000,000 given to the agricultural industry, it should go to the people who are working the land and not to the people who are living upon it. A number of us on this side of the Committee have heard discussions on this question of subsidy, and this, in mar opinion, is a subsidy. The men who are advocating the claim of the agricultural industry, and particularly that of the landlords, to a subsidy are the very men who nearly brought this country to ruin two years ago because of their opposition to a subsidy.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: You got £25,000,000.

Mr. GRAHAM: We did not get anything at all. You gave it to the coal-owners. I remember a speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I think it was in Kelso about two years ago—in which he replied to attacks made by the National Farmers' Union, that the Government were not giving to the agricultural industry as much assistance as they thought they ought to receive. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to enumerate the many ways in which the agricultural industry was being helped by the present Tory Government, and, when the amount was totalled up, it was seen that something like £11,000,000 a year was being paid in subsidies to the agricultural industry. On the top of that, there is this additional proposal of giving roughly £1,000,000. I want it to be clearly understood that as far as we on this side of the Committee are concerned we would have no objection at all to a great deal more money being given to the agricultural industry if it was really intended to raise the industry to the position it ought to occupy, but we do object to public money being given presumably to the industry but really intended to go into the pockets of that
section of the community who render no service whatever in return for the benefits which they are now to receive.
I should like Members on the opposite side of the Committee to direct their attention to the point in our Amendment, which does not deal with the farmer at all. We are not seeking to put him into a worse position, but we are trying to lay down conditions which will make it possible even under this proposal for the actual cultivator of the soil, to get the benefit which is contained in this Clause. I wish to express my regret that an hon. colleague of mine the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) when referring to certain incidents which have happened in Scottish history, described one of the finest characters in Scottish history as "Bloody Graham of Claverhouse." I wish he had used a better phrase. In any case, I hope Scottish Members will appreciate the motive animating us in proposing and submitting this Amendment. I hope that if they are really anxious to help the farmer they will use their influence with the Government. I would not suggest that they should use it as strongly as it was used on behalf of the Irish loyalists, but if they and all Scottish Members were to say that if this relief is to be given it should be applied only to farmers—and that is the object of this Amendment—the advantage to our country would be greater than it will be if the Government reject this Amendment and proceed to push this Clause through the House of Commons by the strength of their majority. I hope that our Amendment will be accepted.

The LORD ADVOCATE: A great deal of discussion which has taken place on this Amendment seems somewhat familiar to me. We heard most of it, if not all of it, on the Second Reading Debate. I do not complain in the least that hon. Members opposite should be so hard driven to find arguments against the Government's Bill, but it forms an adequate reason for my not detaining the Committee as long as I would otherwise have desired to do. I would like the Committee to appreciate exactly what would be the effect of this Amendment. At the moment we are not dealing at all in this Clause—it would be out of order so to deal with it—with the question of what is to happen to the relief, if any, once the owner gets it. That
arises on Clause 33. Under the law at the present moment—it really dates back to 1923, although it assumed different shape in 1926—in agricultural circles the owner pays on three-quarters of his valuation and the tenant pays on only one-quarter. When we came to consider the relief to the agricultural industry in England as a whole where the occupier pays all the rates, it was obvious at once that even if we took away and relieved the tenant of his whole one-quarter, we should not get anything like the benefit from agricultural de-rating they are getting in England. But it does so happen that the one-eighth which is now left as the figure affecting both owner and occupier brings out, taking Scotland as a whole, the reliefs we get in respect of the de-rating of agriculture just a trifle better than the amount in England, a position which I, for one, would be very reluctant to give up. That is the very thing that this Amendment is asking us to give up. Not only that, but the result of this Amendment would be to take away from the owners the relief which they are getting at present to the extent of one-quarter of the valuation and leave them to be rated on the net annual value.
I do not want to argue at length the question of whether a benefit like this ultimately comes to the landlord or not. My humble view is that it certainly does, and I will tell the Committee why. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] Yes, but I do not think that that is the real question to consider at all. The landlord or owner of the property is the only person with whom the property permanently remains. Obviously the tenant, who is a temporary person, cannot carry it away with him, but the whole question is whether the benefit enables the land to be let at a reasonable rent. Obviously one must consider what burdens the landlord has to bear. The question is, what effect subsequently does it have on the letting of the property? We need not quarrel about the early stages, for it is the later stage which is of importance. Experience in the past has suggested that it does affect the amount of rent and affect it beneficially from the point of view of the tenants. You might have suggested that we should have made the tenant entirely rate-free by taking the one-quarter away, but I think that
would have been a regrettable thing, for it would have left the tenant without any interest in the expenditure of rating in his own district.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it not the case that under the Government's proposals, as a matter of fact, the tenant farmer, during the period in which he gets one-half of the landlord's share, is in pocket, and therefore pays no local rates at all?

The LORD ADVOCATE: That may so be argued, because of the conditions under which the existing tenancy was entered into, but you can only test it by taking the permanent conditions. We shall deal with that more fully on Clause 33, but I think there is a complete answer to the suggestion of the hon. Member. I was dealing with the general question. It really would not have been satisfactory to have been content with wiping out the one-quarter of the tenant and, have done nothing for the landlord. We should have left Scotland in a worse position than England, and have left the tenant without any incentive or interest in local affairs, and it would have been of very little material benefit to him.
With regard to whether the landlord is properly described as a partner in the industry or not, we hold very strongly, and with a good deal of historical basis, that the landlord is a partner with the obligations of a partner in providing certain things. It is just because those things are unfairly rated at present that we feel that the de-rating ought to be given to his part as well. Hon. Members talk of this as a subsidy from the Government. It has got nothing to do with that, and it is not a question of a gift at all. It is a question of relief from liability for rates and a question of whether it is fair or just Perhaps I have gone a little further and at greater length than I intended to go, hut it is an engrossing topic, and the arguments are interesting. I hope, therefore, the Committee will forgive me if I have spoken too long.

Mr. JOHNSTON: The Lord Advocate slid with agility over the essential grievance which has been produced by this method of relieving agriculture. Is it not the case that under the Government's proposals the tenant farmer, during the period that he gets one-half
of the landlord's share, is actually going to be in pocket, and therefore for the first time in British economic history you are going to have a class in the country whom it will pay to vote for increased rates?

The LORD ADVOCATE: No. I did not argue that point, because it seemed to me totally out of order, but we will deal with it on a later Amendment.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It is an essential point. The method which has been taken to relieve agriculture is one by which a favoured class of the community is not only going to pay no rates at all, but will be put in pocket, and therefore there will be people who will have a direct economic incentive to vote for increased rates. I am perfectly certain that such a situation has never before obtained in Scotland, and I am amazed that the Lord Advocate has not faced up to that fact. He did not face up to the fact that the landlords under this system are going to get £770,000 in relief and the tenant farmers £110,000. That means £770,000 in Scotland going to the landlord class. I will not refer to the position of other tenants, shopkeepers and commercial classes of other kinds, who get no relief, but I merely draw attention to the fact that under the proposal the landlord class in Scotland are to get, in direct subsidy from the Exchequer, £770,000 per annum, and the tenant farmers only £110,000.

Mr. SKELTON: I desire to say one word further on only one aspect of this topic. The feature of the Amendment which, if there were no other, would make me its inveterate enemy, is that if it were carried the most important class of owner-occupiers would be deprived of the greater part of the relief of rates. We know that the percentage of owner-occupiers in Scotland is somewhere in the nature of 25 per cent. or 27 per cent., but it is a growing percentage, and anyone who has got the interests of agriculture and of a sound social system at heart must sympathise with this point of view. I know there are many on the benches opposite who wish to see the development of a property-owning peasantry in Scotland. Hon. Members will be in agreement with me when I say that if you wish to see a really sound, strong and healthy country, one of the most important
features you can develop is the owner-occupier, and particularly the owner-occupier of smaller holdings of land.
Everyone knows that one of the very great difficulties in approaching land settlement in Scotland, as opposed to that operating in England, and in the problem of producing a class of small owner-occupier in Scotland, has been that they have had to carry a double burden of occupiers' rates and owners' rates. For my part, much of my Parliamentary observations have been devoted to attempting to further the cause of land settlement, and particularly the small ownership in Scotland. There is nothing that I more welcome in the whole of the Measure than the fact that at last it sweeps out of the way one of the real hindrances to the development of a proper system of land settlement in Scotland. I am amazed that, in their desire to score a party point on the subject of landlords, oblivious to the patent fact of a partnership established historically and actually between the landlord and tenant, hon. Members on the other side should have allied themselves to this doctrine that you may not relieve that part of the rates in Scotland which are paid by the agricultural owner. Their Amendment, if carried, would completely check, nullify, and bring to an end all hope of a proper development of a land settlement system in Scotland. We on this side of the Committee who know that the future of democracy lies not in the follies of Socialism, but in the building up of a property-owning democracy—

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Assisted by the lawyers.

Mr. SKELTON: Assisted, we hope, by patriotic and right-minded men. We all know that the future of democracy and the nature of this country lie in building up a strong property-owning democracy, four-square and independent, and, as far as Scotland is concerned, the sweeping away of owners' rates on agricultural land is an essential step towards bringing that about in the agricultural districts.

Mr. MacLAREN: May I deal with the last remarks of the hon. Member? There has been a strong suspicion in the minds of those who have been watching the steady progress of Conservative legislation in regard to land, that they have
a latent idea in their minds of creating peasant proprietorship, with a view to establishing in our countryside something like that which we have observed in France of peasant proprietorship with its niggling, narrow outlook on life, and its rooted Conservatism. I will leave it at that. It is enough that the hon. Member has told us that that is the main cause of his enthusiasm. Coming to the matter immediately under review, I should like to congratulate the Lord Advocate upon maintaining the reputation of his high office in Scotland and adumbrating something that one of his predecessors used to say in this House, much to the abhorrence of the Conservative party at that time. The late Lord Strathclyde maintained that it matters not what advantage may be granted by the State to any tenants or agricultural landowners or users, ultimately the landowners would gain it in rent.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I never said that.

Mr. MacLAREN: I understood the Lord Advocate to say that it came back to the landowners finally. The hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) put this point to the right hon. Member for Hill-head (Sir R. Horne), that it was an economic fact that the ultimate residual claimant of any advantage, either by subsidy or reduction in rates, will be the landlord. That seemed to be contested by the right hon. Member for Hillhead, but it was conceded by the Lord Advocate. If I am misrepresenting the Lord Advocate, I will willingly give way, so that he may make clear what it was that he intended to say. It is a great advantage for the Members of the Opposition to be able to go back to Scotland and to tell the Scottish electorate that all the advantages under this Bill, on the admission of the Lord Advocate in the House of Commons, will ultimately fall into rent, to the benefit of the landlords.

The LORD ADVOCATE: The hon. Member must not misrepresent me. I made it quite clear that I thought there could be no difference between us as to the first point, because the tenant comes and goes and the landlord is the only permanent person; he is the owner of the property. Therefore, it is perfectly
true to say that the benefit which follows on the land must come back to the landowner. But I also said that the later stage is the interesting stage, as to whether or not when a fresh tenant comes that fresh tenant gets any benefit out of it. It is there that the hon. Member is not quite fair to my argument.

Mr. MacLAREN: I should be the last to attempt to misconstrue anything that the Lord Advocate said. It is enough for us that he says that until the new tenancy arises, the landlord is in the position to gain the advantages, whatever they are. The further point is, when the new tenant comes will there be a lowering of rent or an increase of rent? Our observations of practice warrant us in saying that the advantage will go to rent.

The LORD ADVOCATE: That is where we disagree.

Mr. MacLAREN: It has been argued in this House and in legal circles in Scotland that the landlord really pays the rates. It has been stated in Debate tonight that when the tenant enters into occupancy of a farm he takes into account the amount of the rates that he has to pay. If the rates are low, he will be induced by that fact to take the farm earlier than he might have done if the rates had been higher. Surely, it is a clear deduction, and one that any Scotsman should immediately appreciate, that if the rates are reduced by any subvention from the State the benefit will accrue to the landlord, because he will get ready tenants. Let me give a concrete illustration. When advantages were given by the State to the landowners in a guaranteed price for wheat under the Corn Production Act, what did we witness all over the country? We had to bring in a Credits Bill to help the farmers who had got into trouble because, under that Bill, the landlords had screwed the advantage out of the tenants and forced the farmers almost to the point of bankruptcy. I could give other illustrations, but I should have thought that it was a waste of time to try to prove that the advantages ultimately go to rent, even on the argument advanced by the Lord Advocate because, as he rightly says, tenants come and go, but the landowners remain, and if any advantages accrue to the property they
will be the residual claimants of those advantages.
Another point made by the Lord Advocate is of importance. He said that it is all a question of assessing the property. It is most unfortunate that we are discussing this Amendment to-night, but there is no escape from it. The Opposition have at their disposal no other means of protesting against the subsidy going to the landowners, than by tabling this Amendment. The Amendment, as tabled, is consequent upon the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act. The Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act has rather circumscribed in form any Amendment that we can attempt to move in regard to rating. The Lord Advocate says that the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act was discussed. I would remind him that the Guillotine was on and that substantial Amendments which might have affected what we are discussing to-night were ruled out and not discussed.
Let me put the case as I think the Government ought to put it before the country. They say that if they give relief in the form of rate reduction they will help industry, whether it be farming or other industry. One would have thought that in order to secure that relief of industry there would have been at least two entries in the valuation rolls.
When the Rating and Valuation Apportionment Act was under review I tabled an Amendment, which was not reached, asking that in the valuation there should be two entries, one, the value of the land, and, the other, the value of the improvements and equipments on the land, so that in the claim apportioning the relief to rates the local authority would know whether they were giving the relief in respect of the land, as land, or in respect of equipment and general industrial development. That not being done, and proceeding on the old vicious conception of rating on the old composite subject of land and improvements, we are left with no other opportunity of discussing this vital point that the landowner as such as a drawer of rent is a non-producer and renders no service to the State. If you had a proper drafting of the Clause in the Rating and Valuation Apportionment Act, where the relief would have gone in respect of im-
provements, then in cases where the landowner carried out improvements himself—I should be the last person to discourage any landowner carrying out his improvements—I would say that if a landowner is developing his land and creating improvements he has as much right to relief in respect of those improvements as the occupier. That is not so under this Bill. Landowners will get relief in respect of rates because they own highly valuable land. They will take advantage of every rate relief that is given. I was speaking to the chief landowner in my own shire—

Mr. COUPER: Where is that?

Mr. MacLAREN: It was in Glasgow.

Mr. COUPER: There is no agricultural land in Glasgow.

Mr. MacLAREN: —and he told me quite frankly that during current leases he would not stand to gain much, but he said that in the drawing-up of new leases he was keeping his eye on the fact that there would be less rates to pay. The Lord Advocate tells us that the opposite will be the case by virtue of the fact that a landowner will have less rates to pay, and that he will say to his tenants: "Having less rates to pay, I am going to make less extortionate demands upon you for rent." It would do something to convert the opposition to an admiration of landowners if the Government will produce one landowner in England or Scotland who, having received an advantage in rate relief from the Government, will go round to his tenants and say: "Is there any tenant who wants to take advantage of the relief; I will hand it over to you?" Knowing Scottish landowners as I do, they are the last type of landowner on this earth to give away any advantage that they receive from rate relief; and my experience is pretty similar amongst English landowners.
There seems to be a strong feeling on the benches opposite that we have gone somewhat wide of the mark in order to attack landowners. Frankly, I think that there is much time wasted on both side of the House in denouncing individuals instead of trying to attack the system and improve it. I have been insistent in demanding that the rate pressure should be taken off agriculture and industry in order to help them. What
we complain of is that, instead of the relief being given to industry, whether it is agriculture or industry, the Bill is so drawn that the advantages will go to the people who are not in any sense participants, in the sense of public service industrially or agriculturally. There is a method whereby we could easily assist agriculture without giving subventions from the State, but I cannot mention them at the moment. All the advantages you are giving under this Bill will go ultimately to rent. That is undeniable, from the economic point of view or the practice in the past; and I want to congratulate the Lord Advocate on having had the courage to admit that to a certain extent that is the fact.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: I intervene only for a few moments. The observations of the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) have given such a totally false impression of what I know within my own knowledge to he the attitude of many Scottish landowners that, with the permission of the House, I will give a few instances. I will mention no names, but I shall be glad to give to the hon. Members the names in the three cases I propose to give, and he can investigate them himself. One of the largest landowners in the South of Scotland has, through his factor, already caused it to be circulated that all the benefits he will receive from the Rating and Valuation Bill will be put into a fund; and put into the land. That, surely, will be to the benefit of the farmers who are farming. Another has offered, again on his own initiative, at the end of the present tenancy, when the proportion of the relief ceases to be handed over by the landlord to the tenant, to continue to give to the tenant such relief as his total relief on all rates. It is not as much as he gives at the present, because the amount given by the landlord to the tenant during the present tenancy is more than the tenant pays at the moment in rates. There is the third instance.

Some years ago, when a Bill was under discussion in this House, one of the largest landowners gave me a copy of the accounts of his estate extending over a period of six or eight years. I went through them with the help of an accountant and the total rent bill was less than the amount he had put into the land during the whole of those years. So far from the picture the hon. Member has drawn being correct, of landlords taking all they can and denying the tenants improvements—and this is by no means a single case—this is an instance in which the landlord was actually putting back into his property more than he was receiving from it. The hon. Member will believe men when I say that I am not saying things which I do not know to be facts. Is it possible that landlords who have adopted that attitude towards their tenants and property before this Bill was brought in are going to be the skinflints and rogues which the hon. Member tries to make out. He spoke of his own shire. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Maryhill (Mr. Couper) was quite right in saying that there are no agricultural landlords there whatever. No person imagines that the County of Glasgow represents typical agricultural land in Scotland, and when the hon. Member tries to make this Committee believe otherwise, he is simply ploughing the sands. Glasgow has no more to do with agriculture now than my own county of Dumfries has to do with the transport problem of London. The fact is that this Bill, as it becomes more and more understood, is not only not opposed, but is appreciated by the agricultural community, both tenants and landlords. The Bill is a fair Bill. I hope the Committee will not accept the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 179; Noes, 101.

Division No. 211.]
AYES.
[9.57 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Balniel, Lord
Boothby, R. J. G.


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Barclay-Harvey C. M.
Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish
Briscoe, Richard George


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Berry, Sir George
Brocklebank, C. E. R.


Apsley, Lord
Bethel, A.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.


Atholl, Duchess of
Betterton, Henry B.
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.


Atkinson, C.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Blundell, F. N.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C (Berks, Newb'y)


Buckingham, Sir H.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Plicher, G.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Preston, William


Christie, J. A.
Herbert, S. (York, N.R.,Scar. & Wh'by)
Radford, E. A.


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hilton, Cecil
Raine, Sir Walter


Clayton, G. C.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney,N.)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hume, Sir G. H.
Ropner, Major L.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Cooper, A. Duff
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cope, Major Sir William
Iveagh, Countess of
Rye, F. G.


Couper, J. B.
Jones, Henry Haydn, (Merioneth)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Craig, Sir Ernett (Chester, Crewe)
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Sanderson Sir Frank


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Sandon, Lord


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lamb, J. Q.
Savery, S. S.


Crookshank,Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A.D. Mel.(Renfrew,W.)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Looker, Herbert William
Skelton, A. N.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)
Lougher, Lewis
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Eden, Captain Anthony
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Elliot, Major Walter E.
MacIntyre, Ian
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.


Ellis, R. G.
McLean, Major A.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Macmillan, Captain H.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Macquisten, F. A.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Everard, W. Lindsay
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Tomilnson, R. P.


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Margesson, Captain D.
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Fermoy, Lord
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Waddington, R.


Ford, Sir P. J.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Forrest, W.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Fraser, Captain Ian
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Watts, Sir Thomas


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Wells, S. R.


Gates, Percy
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Nelson, Sir Frank
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks,Richm'd)


Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Nuttall, Ellis
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Hammersley, S. S.
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Womersley, W. J


Harland, A.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William



Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Owen, Major G.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Penny, Frederick George
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Sir Victor


Henderson,Capt.R.R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
 Warrender.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Gillett, George M.
MacNeill-Weir, L.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Maxton, James


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edln., Cent.)
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)


Ammon, Charles George
Greenall, T.
Naylor, T. E.


Barnes, A.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Paling, W.


Barr, J.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Ponsonby, Arthur


Batey, Joseph
Griffith, F. Kingsley
Potts, John S.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Purcell, A. A.


Bellamy, A.
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Benn, Wedgwood
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Riley, Ben


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Hardie, George D.
Ritson, J.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hayes, John Henry
Scrymgeour, E.


Broad, F. A.
Hirst, G. H.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Bromley, J.
Hollins, A.
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Shield, G. W.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Buchanan, G.
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Shinwell, E.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Cape, Thomas
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Charieton, H. C.
Kennedy, T.
Smillie, Robert


Clarke, A. B.
Lawson, John James
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Compton, Joseph
Lee, F.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Cove, W. G.
Lindley, F. W.
Stephen, Campbell


Dalton, Hugh
Lowth, T.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Day, Harry
Lunn, William
Strauss, E. A.


Duncan, C.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Sullivan, Joseph


Gardner, J. P.
Mackinder, W.
Sutton, J. E.


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
MacLaren, Andrew
Taylor, R. A.




Tinker, John Joseph
Westwood, J.
Windsor, Walter


Townend, A. E.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Wright, W.


Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
Whiteley, W.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)



Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Wellock, Wilfred
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. T.


Welsh, J. C.
Wilton, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
 Henderson.


Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

The LORD ADVOCATE: I beg to move, in page 31, line 16, at the end, to insert the words:
(3) No owner or occupier of agricultural lands and heritages shall by reason only of the foregoing provisions of this Section be required to pay in respect of such lands and heritages any water rate leviable under a local Act on a higher annual value than that on which he would have been required to pay if the said provisions had not been enacted.
This Amendment is really consequential upon the Amendment which has just been inserted. The effect of it is to safeguard the case of a man who has been paying a water rate under a local Act which gives him more favourable terms.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 31.—(Rateable value of industrial or freight transport lands and heritages.)

Sir R. HAMILTON: I beg to move, in page 31, line 30, after the word "purposes," to insert the words:
other than the purposes of a brewery, distillery, or tobacco manufactory.
I do not propose to argue this Amendment. Both sides of the case are thoroughly well understood, but I think it desirable that the issue should be raised on the Scottish Bill as well as on the English Bill. We also desire to get on to the next Amendment which deals with the docks, and, therefore, I beg formally to move this Amendment.

Mr. BARR: On this particular Amendment the facts are not in dispute. The sum involved has been stated quite definitely from the Treasury Bench to be £400,000 per annum. It is admitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this sum is being given to a prosperous trade.[HON. MEMBERS "That sum is for England!"] I am not at the moment giving the figures for Scotland, I will give them in a minute. This is a business
with a total capital for both countries of £260,000,000. I come to the profits, because they will determine how far this is a prosperous trade, and how far it is really entitled, whatever you may say under this Bill, to receive this large subsidy. I will give the distilleries first: Buchanan-Dewar, in 1927, declared a dividend of 28 per cent., and Highland Distilleries, a dividend of 50 per cent. I should like to quote, from the "Brewers' Manual," these figures which relate to Scottish brewers:
Aitcheson, Edinburgh, paid 12 per cent., free of Income Tax, last year; T. and J. Bernard, Edinburgh, 10 per cont., free of tax; Campbell, Hope and King, Edinburgh, 7½ per cent. and 2½ per cent, bonus; Mc. McEwan, Edinburgh, since 1921 have paid a statutory 10 per cent., Wm. Murray, Edinburgh, 10 per cent., R. Younger, Edinburgh, 15 per cent., tax free; Montgomerie and Company, Glasgow, 15 per cent., and Win. Younger, Edinburgh, 10 per cent. and 10 per cent. bonus.
I wish to bring this matter to one or two tests. The first is, is the industry, in the sense originally intended, really a productive industry? "Productive industry" is defined in political economy as one that adds wealth to the nation. Is it not admitted that as this particular industry prospers, so it tends to the decrease and destruction of the wealth of the nation? I take it next from the point of view of the test of employment. The Prime Minister admitted, in a speech in Edinburgh, on 17th June last, that this was a prosperous trade, but he said that by giving this help to some businesses which did not need it we were helping it to expand and thereby to diminish unemployment. I would point out that the more money that is withdrawn from other industry and spent in this industry, the less employment there is in the country. I declare that this industry, by all statistics, is the poorest man-employing, wage, paying, industry in the country. If we take the Census of Production for 1912, we find that a capital of £54,970,000 invested in fruit and confections concerns gives employment to 170,903 persons, whereas a capital of £58,000,000–4,000,000 more—invested in liquor concerns, gives employment
only to 91,732 persons. Therefore, in proportion as you foster this trade and develop the capital invested in it, and withdraw capital from other industries, so you are not increasing but reducing employment in the country. I take one ether point. In the Census of Production for 1924, I find that the brewery output is £159,000,000 per annum, and that that gives employment to 67,069 persons, whereas, according to the same Census of Production, £156,095,000 invested in hosiery, boots and shoes, and printing and bookbinding businesses gives employment to 421,000 people. That is six times the number employed by the breweries. Therefore, both on the ground of production and employment, this subsidy and gift are unwarranted.
I wish to call attention to one other thing dealing with de-rating. I find that all over the country the brewing and distilling interests are paying only £3 per £1,000 of the rates of the country, yet you are going to reduce that £3 to 15s. When you remember the amount of poor rate and police rate which is due in large measure to this very industry I say, again, that there is no ground for giving this grant. This is not a gift to the industry, but a gift to the brewers themselves. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it would be passed on to the consumer, but the "Brewers' Journal" of 15th June expressed astonishment at the right hon. Gentleman's statement as to the possible passing on of this grant. They said that it would only come to 4d. a barrel, and therefore could not be passed on. Thus it is not a gift to the industry, but a gift to the brewers and distillers themselves. It is a reward to them for the great and special services which they are rendering to the country. On all these grounds, and other grounds that might be indicated, I say that it is a very strange formula which gives this sum to the brewers and distillers and excludes dwelling houses, retail shops, and distributive wholesale businesses. It seems to be moral confusion that this and kindred businesses, which are striking at the vitals of the nation, which are destructive of fructifying effort, which are undermining the real wealth of the nation, should be singled out by this Government for favours and rewards while others more deserving, who are in
great need, get nothing at all. It seems to me the Government show a certain perversion of moral values. I will not say that they
call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter,
but I would repeat the words of the prophet:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness.

Major ELLIOT: The Mover of the Amendment spoke very briefly because, I understand, he was desirous of getting on to a further Amendment, and I think it only fair that we should do our utmost to fall in with the sacrifice of time which he made by the curtailment of the Debate. The hon. Member who has just spoken has not adduced any facts which were not adduced on the corresponding stage of the English Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has rubbed them in!"] There is rubbing in, and rubbing in; and I have a crow to pluck with the hon. Member which will not take me very long. I only wish to get in before the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) because I know from bitter experience that, when started, he is fully capable of occupying all the remaining time with his exordium, let alone his peroration.

Mr. BROMLEY: What objection is there to his speaking? What right has the hon. and gallant Member to object? If others are speaking only for their own pockets, they can speak as long as they wish.

Major ELLIOT: In Scotland we have a little objection to English Members "butting in."

Mr. BROMLEY: On a point of Order. Is it in order for any hon. or right hon. Gentlemen to object to an elected Member of the House of. Commons taking part in the business? Are there any lines of demarcation of the kind suggested?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member speaking from the Front Bench, was in possession of the Committee.

Mr. BROMLEY: Was he in order, Sir?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Yes.

Mr. BROMLEY: Very well. He may get it returned some day in regard to speaking on English matters.

Major ELLIOT: Really it seems as though the remark of Sydney Smith about a corkscrew being required to get a joke into the head of a Scotsman might be applied to some hon. Members. Apparently, the remedy of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Barr) for the present state of things in connectionn with the manufacture of liquor, is to say to the local authority "You shall draw four times as much in rates from a distillery or brewery as from any other kind of factory whatever." That would mean that local authorities who had numbers of breweries and distilleries in their areas would be four times better off than other local authorities who were not so fortunate as to attract those trades into their areas. Does the hon. Member not see that that is the surest way to make local authorities favour the establishment of breweries and distilleries in their areas? I leave hon. Members opposite with that, and I simply ask the Committee to observe that the remedy of hon. Members opposite is to say to local authorities, "If you can succeed in getting a brewery established in your area., you shall draw four times as much in rates as other authorities which have no breweries in their areas."

Mr. JAMES BROWN: I always understood that it was another implement that Sydney Smith referred to than a corkscrew, but being a Scot perhaps the word "corkscrew" dropped into the mind of the hon. and gallant Member. I am only standing up for a moment to identify myself with the mover, the seconder, and the supporter of this Amendment, not on the ground of figures, but on moral grounds. I am absolutely amazed at the arguments of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, and I trust that in the Division Lobby we shall record our dissent from and disgust at the arguments that are being used to bolster up the case of the Government.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I appreciate the anxiety about the docks, because this business leads to the dock. You leave to remember that this is a monopoly, created by a licence policy, and by that policy you have established a tremendous wealth, until its power is paramount in this House. Last night the Irish section of it gave an evidence of it, with the support of the whole Tory party, to let them see what the brewery interest can do. The hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Barr) has already dealt fully with the question of employment, but there is a comparison of 5,772 employés, on a £1,000,000 output, in regard to 10 of the outstanding legitimate businesses of our country, according to the Board of Trade statistics, against which you have only 542 people employed by this brewery business.
I put it to the working people and to the House of Commons that this is the biggest drag we have on employment in this country. It was a deplorable thing that during the great miners' struggle, notwithstanding the efforts of two or three Members of this House to raise a boycott of the beer, they could not get a majority of the working people to stand up to this power, showing that in every section of this country this thing has such a tremendous grip, to the deterioration of the interests of the nation at large, that we are really called upon to do something entirely different from making more concessions to a thing which is so powerful that during the War it was able to smash up all the combined efforts that were made to secure prohibition at that time. The sooner the whole of the parties in this House realise this, the better it will be for the interests of the nation.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 116; Noes, 183.

Division No. 212.]
AYES.
[10.26 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Broad, F. A.
Day, Harry


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Bromley, J.
Duncan, C.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)


Ammon, Charles George
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston)
Buchanan, G.
Forrest, W.


Barnes, A.
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Gardner, J. P.


Barr, J.
Cape, Thomas
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.


Batey, Joseph
Charleton, H. C.
Gillett, George M.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Clarke, A. B.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)


Bellamy, A.
Compton, Joseph
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)


Benn, Wedgwood
Cove, W. G.
Greenall, T.


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Dalton, Hugh
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)


Griffith, F. Kingsley
Lunn, William
Stephen, Campbell


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mackinder, W.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Sullivan, J.


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Maxton, James
Sutton, J. E.


Hardie, George D.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Taylor, R. A.


Hayes, John Henry
Morris, R. H.
Tinker, John Joseph


Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Naylor, T. E.
Tomlinson, R. P.


Hirst, G. H.
Paling, W.
Townend, A. E.


Hollins, A.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Potts, John S.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Purcell, A. A.
Wellock, Wilfred


Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Welsh, J. C.


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Riley, Ben
Westwood, J.


Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Ritson, J.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)
Whiteley, W.


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Scrymgeour, E.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Kelly, W. T.
Shield, G. W.
Williams, T. (York. Don Valley)


Kennedy, T.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Shinwell, E.
Windsor, Walter


Lawrence, Susan
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Wright, W.


Lawson, John James
Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Lee, F.
Smillie, Robert



Lindley, F. W.
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Longbottom, A. W.
Snell, Harry
Major Owen and Sir Robert


Lowth, T.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Hamilton.


NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s-M.)
Macquisten, F. A.


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
MacRobert, Alexander M.


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Everard, W. Lindsay
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Margesson, Captain D.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Apsley, Lord
Fermoy, Lord
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Ford, Sir P. J.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd


Atholl, Duchess of
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-


Atkinson, C,
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Fraser, Captain Ian
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)


Balniel, Lord
Gadie, Lieut. Colonel Anthony
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Gates, Percy
Murchison, Sir Kenneth


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nelson, Sir Frank


Berry, Sir George
Gower, Sir Robert
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Bethel, A.
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Nuttall, Ellis


Betterton, Henry B.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Bevan, S. J.
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Hammersley, S. S.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bowater, Colonel Sir T. Vansittart
Harland, A.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kannington)
Plicher, G.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Harvey, Majors, E. (Devon, Totnes)
Power, Sir John Cecil


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Preston, William


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd,Henley)
Price, Major C. W. M.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Radford, E. A.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Raine, Sir Walter


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Cayzer Sir C. (Chester, City)
Herbert, S. (York, N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt.R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Hilton, Cecil
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Ropner, Major L.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Christie, J. A.
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney. N.)
Rye, F. G.


Clayton, G. C.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Salmon, Major I.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Inskip. Sir Thomas Walker H.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Iveagh, Countess of
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Sandon, Lord


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Savery, S. S.


Cooper, A. Duff
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A.D. Mcl.(Renfrew,W.)


Cope, Major Sir William
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Skelton, A. N.


Couper, J. B.
Lamb, J. Q.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Loder, J. de V.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Looker, Herbert William
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lougher, Lewis
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Stanley, Lieut. Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.


Davies, Maj. Geo.F. (Somerset,Yeovil)
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Eden, Captain Anthony
MacDonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Elliot, Major Walter E.
MacIntyre, Ian
Tasker, R. Inigo


Ellis, R. G.
McLean, Major A.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of




Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough
Watts, Sir Thomas
Windsor-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


Waddington, R.
Wayland, Sir William A.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Wallace, Captain D. E.
Wells, S. R.
Womersley, W. J.


Ward, Lt.-Col.A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)



Warrender, Sir Victor
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks,Richm'd)
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Mr. Penny.

It being after half-past Ten of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 12th December, successively to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at half-past Ten of the Clock at this day's Sitting.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 192; Noes, 121.

Division No. 213.]
AYES.
[10.34 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Fermoy, Lord
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Ford, Sir P. J.
Murchison, Sir Kenneth


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Nelson, Sir Frank


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Fraser, Captain Ian
Nuttall, Ellis


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Apsley, Lord
Galbraith, J. F. W.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Gates, Percy
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Atholl, Duchess of
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William


Atkinson, C.
Gower, Sir Robert
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Balniel, Lord
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Pilcher, G.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Power, Sir John Cecil


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E
Preston, William


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Berry, Sir George
Hammersley, S. S.
Radford, E. A.


Bethel, A.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Raine, Sir Walter


Betterton, Henry B.
Harland, A.
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Bevan, S. J.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Blundell, F. N.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Ropner, Major L.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Henderson,Capt.R.R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Rye, F. G.


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Salmon, Major I.


Briscoe, Richard George
Herbert, S. (York, N. R.,Scar. & Wh'by)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hilton, Cecil
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Sandon, Lord


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Savery, S. S.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Hudson, Capt. A. U.M. (Hackney, N.)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew.W.)


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Skelton, A. N.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth.S.)
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Iveagh, Countess of
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Christie, J. A.
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. [...]


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Clayton, G. C.
Lamb, J. Q.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Loder, J. de V.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Looker, Herbert William
Tasker, R. Inigo


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Lougher, Lewis
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Cooper, A. Duff
Luce. Major-Gen. Sir Richard Herman
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Cope, Major Sir William
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough


Couper, J. B.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Waddington, R.


Courtauld, Major J. S.
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Ward, Lt.-Col.A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
MacIntyre, Ian
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
McLean, Major A.
Warrender, Sir Victor


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Macmillan, Captain H.
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Crookshank,Cpt.H.(Lindsey.Gainsbro)
Macquisten, F. A.
Watts, Sir Thomas


Dalkeith, Earl of
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovll)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Wells, S. R.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Eden, Captain Anthony
Margesson, Captain D.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks.Richm'd)


Ellis, R. G.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Mitchell, S, (Lanark, Lanark)
Womersley, W. J.


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.



Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R. (Ayr)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Fanshawe, Captain G. D.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Mr. Penny and Captain Wallace.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Hardie, George D.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hayes, John Henry
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Shield, G. W.


Ammon, Charles George
Hirst, G. H.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston)
Hollins, A.
Shinwell, E.


Barr, J.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Batey, Joseph
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Sitch, Charles H.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Bellamy, A.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smillie, Robert


Benn, Wedgwood
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Bennett, William (Battersea, Sou'h)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Snell, Harry


Broad, F. A.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bromley, J.
Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Stephen, Campbell


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Kelly, W. T.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kennedy, T.
Strauss, E. A.


Buchanan, G.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Sullivan, Joseph


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Lawrence, Susan
Sutton, J. E.


Cape, Thomas
Lawson, John James
Taylor, R. A.


Charleton, H. C.
Lee, F.
Tinker, John Joseph


Clarke, A. B.
Lindley, F. W.
Tomilnson, R. P.


Compton, Joseph
Longbottom, A. W.
Townend, A. E.


Cove, W. G.
Lowth, T.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Lunn, William
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Dalton, Hugh
Mackinder, W.
Wellock, Wilfred


Day, Harry
MacLaren, Andrew
Welsh, J. C.


Duncan, c.
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Westwood, J.


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Maxton, James
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Forrest, W.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Whiteley, W.


Gardner, J. P.
Morris, R. H.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Naylor, T. E.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Gillett, George M.
Oliver, George Harold
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Owen, Major G.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edln., Cent.)
Paling, W.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Greenall, T.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Windsor, Walter


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Potts, John S.
Wright, W.


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Purcell, A. A.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Griffith, F. Kingsley
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)



Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Riley, Ben
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Ritson, J.
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. A.


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)
 Barnes.


Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Scrymgeour, E.



Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 32.—(Amendments of Section 12 of and First Schedule to Act of 1906.)

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.

Resolved, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Tires Monsell.]

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I must again, on this Motion, protest against the autocratic conduct of the Parliamentary Secretary to the
Treasury. Here we are, at seventeen minutes to eleven, and there are on the Paper a number of private Members' Bills, in none of which, I may say, I have any particular interest. Not content with depriving private Members of all their rights, the Chief Patronage Secretary again and again moves the Adjournment of the House at this hour, and takes away this last opportunity of bringing forward Measures for the good of the community. [Interruption.] Why should he not allow one or two of these Bills to be debated? No harm would be done, and some good might result. At any rate, the Government are doing very little good with their official programme, and it would give an opportunity to their unofficial supporters to see if they can do anything.

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter before Eleven o'Clock.